Desserts

Perfect Top Pecan Pie

Baking began early this morning as Thanksgiving is less than a week away. I asked Kennedy to go to the basement and grab a bag of dry beans. Why…do you need beans? Are you going to blind bake your pie? I looked at her a little shocked. How do you know what a blind bake is, I asked. Mom, I watch The Great British Baking Show. I laughed and tried to call her bluff. What temperature should the oven be set for a blind bake, I asked. Duh mom, 400° or 350° if your ovens because they are convection. I laughed so hard I cried a little.

The back story that makes this so funny is that Kennedy is my child that randomly starts talking with an English accent. No, she does not have FAS, Foreign Accent Syndrome (look it up…it’s a real disorder), she just thinks it is hilarious. We will be sitting in a restaurant and she will suddenly order her food in an English accent. Sometimes we all join in because we don’t want her to look silly or out of place. So now, I no longer think my daughter has a mental illness…I blame The Great British Baking Show, This certainly explains the tent she put up in the backyard!!!

For those of you who don’t think it is fun to talk in an English accent while binge- 4D770F6C-65B9-44A5-992C-F90C54C0D248 watching The Great British Baking Show. Blind baking is baking or partially baking the pie crust before pouring in pie filling to ensure a flaky crust. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know this…my husband walked in the kitchen while I was preparing to blind bake the shell and said, “what-cha making hun…a bean pie”? You can tell who shares my DNA and who doesn’t.

Blind baking, along with coarsely chopping the nuts, is our time tested proven steps to perfect pecan pie. Most people like to leave the pecans halved and even place them in designs on the top of the pie filling. While I will admit this looks amazing… the taste doesn’t come close. By chopping the pecans, the butter, sugar, and salt in this recipe caramelize around the small pecan pieces to form a top crust that tastes like a brittle or toffee. It’s crunchy, sweet, salty and seriously delicious!!!

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Extra Creamy Pumpkin Pie

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his pumpkin pie is hands down the best pumpkin pie you will ever taste! It is so creamy with a perfectly smooth texture. What is the secret? Cream cheese. It is not a large amount of cream cheese, just 8 ounces but it makes all the difference in the world. Many people may not even know cream cheese has been added. The second key is using real heavy whipping cream. So many people use evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk. These pumpkin pie recipes were put on the sides of cans to sell products but are nowhere near as flavorful or creamy as using the real deal. So, take our pumpkin pie challenge this Thanksgiving and try adding cream cheese and real cream to pumpkin pie…your friends and family will taste the difference!

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Amazing Apple Pie

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s many of you know the motivation to starting our baking blog was to write down recipes (WITH MEASUREMENTS), teach them to my daughters and document the journey. I am here to say, making apple pie today proved that this is exactly what we need to be doing.

I was peeling apples and preparing ingredients when the girls came in the kitchen. Oh yum! Are we making apple pie today? The week before Thanksgiving is known as “pie-week” at our house. They asked if I had enough ingredients for them to make their own pie. Side by side we made two apple pies. The pie the girls were working on, I can honestly say I never touched. As I watched the girls working together, I didn’t know whether to be more proud that my girls were peacefully working together, or the crazy amazing lattice work they were creating on the upper crust of this pie. Made from scratch apple pie with lattice work intimidates most bakers and yet this pie, made by my two teenage daughters looked like it could be featured on the Food Network.

I decided that as I blogged this recipe I would only take pictures of my daughters pie. I want to illustrate to everyone who has ever been afraid of making apple pie, just how easy it can be. With the right crust (linked below), and the secret step to our filing, you too can make the perfect apple pie. Now, I am not sure what the secret is to getting my girls to always get along, but I do know the secret to perfect apple pie…read the instructions below and you will too!

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Perfect Pie Crust 101

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or a long period in my life pie was my culinary nemesis. When people would use the expression (or is it an idiom?) “easy as pie” I was genuinely confused. Was this a sarcastic statement or were there people in the world who honestly thought pie was easy to make? And, if it was so easy for them to make, what in the world was I doing wrong? I think my lack of interest to conquer making pie came from my lack of interest in pie itself. I was the kid who ate the filling but left the crust behind. When I became a mother and started hosting my own Thanksgiving dinners, I knew this hate-hate relationship I had with pie would have to change. I decided to conquer pie, if for no other reason than to say Thanksgiving dinner had a homemade pie on the table.

I began doing my homework and learned that I probably hated pie because I wasn’t eating quality pie. I learned that there are four types of short-crust pastry (the type of pastry used for making pie). Pate a foncer is a french pastry that includes egg and a small amount of sugar, this pastry is rich and perfect for tarts that shouldnt be overly sweet. Pate brisee is similar to pate a foncer but incorporates more butter allowing for a lighter crust. It usually has little to no sugar and is perfect for savory pies such as chicken pot pie. Pate sucree is made with a little more sugar which inhibits the gluten strands allowing for the perfect crumble and in my opinion creating the perfect pie crust. Pate sablee is basically a shortbread or cookie crust. It very often has the same ingredients as pate sucree but the process for making it involves creaming the butter, sugar and eggs before flour is incorporated. This is the perfect crust for dainty little tea tarts.

What I have learned is that great pie starts with great ingredients. Just because I don’t like to use vegetable shortening in…well anything, doesn’t mean I don’t understand why people use it. Butter has a lower melting point than shortening and lard making them much easier to work with than butter. So the challenge becomes learning tips and tricks that allow you to use the best ingredients, handle the dough less and create a perfectly flavorful, flaky pie crust. Over the years I have tried it all…shortening, lard, a mixture of two fats, all trying to balance flavor with function. I am here to tell you with this recipe and the step by step instructions and tips, you don’t have to sacrifice any flavor. This recipe uses all butter creating amazing flavor in a perfectly flaky crust. I now love making pie and love eating it even more. Please read all of the instructions after the ingredients. This is one recipe that the steps involved are as important, if not more important than the ingredients themselves. Some of my tips may seem crazy…but trust me. This recipe makes baking pie so easy you will become the star of Thanksgiving dinner!

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Pumpkin Cheesecake

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s it an issue that half of the recipes on this blog have pumpkin as a main ingredient? Yikes…I may have a problem! If you are one of those people who hate the orange gourd, don’t worry, you have almost made it through November. I do have to say, that even as a child, “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater” was my favorite nursery rhyme…maybe that is where my illness began. Nah…pumpkin shmumpkin…who doesn’t love pumpkin???

A couple years ago a friend of mine told me about a young girl in the neighborhood who wanted a pumpkin cheesecake for her birthday. I knew this girl well and wanted to help. I went to work learning what I could about everything pumpkin cheesecake. Now, I am no stranger to making cheesecake, the size of my jeans will attest to that, but surprisingly pumpkin I had never tried. After literally 20 different attempts and recipe modifications this perfect cheesecake came to life. Of course, I have added sour cream to this recipe. Those of you who know me know that sour cream is the somethin, somethin, I like to call my secret ingredient. Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

Seriously this cheesecake is SO rich and creamy you will never eat pumpkin pie again! Now, I completely understand that making cheesecake can seem like a daunting task. Please do not be reluctant to try this recipe. Trust me when I say that I have already experienced every mistake to be made while making cheesecake and I have found a way to fix every one . So fully read the instructions after the ingredients and let my mistakes lead to your culinary perfection. I even have a few hacks to make every cheesecake picture-perfect every time!

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

hanksgiving is more than a feast of turkey at our house. Every Thanksgiving the boys in our family get up early to play football. The much anticipated “Turkey-bowl” gets more hype than the Superbowl. It has become such an important part of our holiday festivities, that even before I get the bird in the oven, I get breakfast ready for my Thanksgiving athletes. When they return we eat breakfast while I listen to the stories of all their poultry glory. This post-game breakfast always includes these amazing pumpkin muffins. I often think that if we omitted the muffin paper they would more accurately be classified as cookies…but somehow calling them muffins makes me feel less guilty eating them for breakfast.

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The Perfect Brownie

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love to bake, so I tend to fall into the category of people who think everything should be made from scratch. That being said, I have to admit…there are times I like to doctor a mix. Brownies are NOT one of those times. For those of you who have only ever eaten box mix brownies, Please, Please, try these brownies. In the competition of box versus scratch….there is simply no comparison. You haven’t tasted a brownie until you have made one from scratch. Boxed brownies tend to become too oily or grainy and simply don’t have the depth of flavor created in the homemade version. I understand why many people have turned to the box mix. We are busy people, living way too busy lives. Many brownie recipes require melting chocolate assimilating it into the wet ingredients and then incorporating your wet and dry ingredients together. Other recipes require scalding milk and cooking the wet ingredients before incorporating the dry ingredients. All of these steps can be time-consuming and tedious. This recipe originated with melting chocolate. When I had only one child that recipe seemed to work out just fine. But I soon found myself with four children, a job and a messy house, none of which was going to wait while I melted chocolate. I simplified my brownie recipe into a one-bowl wonder. So, the next time you go to grab that convenient box…remember these brownies are just as quick with a flavor that will leave you wondering why you ever settled for a mix in the first place. These brownies are very versatile and hold up well when cut into squares. To frost, or not to frost…that is the question. While this is a very worthy debate, I am going to include the frosting recipe we created just for these brownies. This Nutella frosting is not overly sweet and has salty accents that perfectly compliment the rich chocolate flavor. Be sure to have a tall glass of cold milk on hand when these are finished!!!

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