Daily Unadventures in Cooking » Pie

Apple Pie Recipe with Oatmeal Streusel Topping

katerina — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:03:59 +0000

Forget the chocolate, pound cakes and German buttercream. In my house the most requested desserts always center around fruit. This apple pie recipe has a flaky crust base but is topped with a sweet and crunchy oatmeal streusel making it both a pie and a crisp, and a very popular dessert in my house.

If you are in need of a simple recipe that is comforting, warm and fit for the holiday season look no further than this apple pie.

Rhubarb, Apple, and Rosemary Turnover Recipe

katerina — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:33:13 +0000

If you are looking for a recipe for your booming rhubarb plant, look no further. Everyone loves a good rhubarb pie, but these turnovers are even more fun, and really not that much more difficult.

The rosemary may sound strange but it’s a nice delicate addition which compliments the tart rhubarb nicely. Now I do love me some rhubarb but you can vary the filling in many ways, just make sure it isn’t too wet. Oh, and make a double batch, they go fast.

Chicken and Leek Pie Recipe

katerina — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:34:50 +0000

While eating this chicken and leek pie you can easily imagine you are in a little stone pub somewhere in Ireland. Ivy creeps up the walls. Sheep are milling around the yard. A pint of bitters drips moisture onto a long and well-scrubbed wooden table.

Okay, so you may not actually be on the Emerald Isle, but why not celebrate St. Patricks Day anyways? Chicken and leek pie is a classic comfort food recipe that schoolchildren in Ireland and Britain have been enjoying for a long time. Traditionally, a chicken and leek pie recipe would include ham rather than bacon and sometimes mushrooms. Regardless this is a different and unique chicken pie recipe and a perfect Sunday dinner.

Cranberry, Pear and Ginger Pie

katerina — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:56:38 +0000

Pears and ginger are natural friends and when paired with cranberries make for a tart and spicy pie. Your family, no doubt used to all the sweet chocolates of the holidays, will take one bite and be surprised by the way their mouth puckers slightly from the sourness.

I for one relish the break from all things sickly sweet. Candy canes, marzipan and sugar pies can be given a break for another year, I will take more of this fruit filled winter pie please.

Cranberry, Pear and Ginger Pie

1 recipe pie crust

4 pears
2 cups cranberries
1/2 cup brown sugar
pinch salt
1 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon vanilla

Make your pie crust, wrap it and keep it in the fridge. Peel the pears and remove the cores. Thinly slice the pears and put in a mixing bowl. Chop all the cranberries in half and add to the pears along with the sugar, salt, ginger and vanilla. Toss and set aside.

Turn oven on to 400F and roll out the pie dough into two large circles. Line a pie plate with one of the circles and fill with the fuit mixture. Top with the second crust and seal the edges by pincing. Cut a few slits in the pie and bake for 45 minutes or until nice and golden.

Caramelized Pear Pie Recipe

katerina — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:10:00 +0000

Because I have just discovered that I like pears, I have never done any baking with them at all. When we saw these beautiful ones at the market for 50 cents each, I brought home a bunch, then realized I would need to bake something. Excellent.

How do you choose what kind of pear dessert to make? I almost made crisp, but we were low on oats, I thought about muffins, but I always make muffins. Then I was thinking some kind of savoury tart with blue cheese, but I wanted something sweet. The uncertainty ended quickly when the word pear pie escaped my lips. Suddenly J was paying attention, fully invested in my baking expedition, and wanted pear pie. Pie it was.

So I opened up a pie cookbook I bought him for his birthday a few years ago (and yes trust me it was a gift for him, he has made one recipe, I have made several), and found a recipe for caramelized pear pie. I made a few minor adjustments, I used my favorite pie crust recipe, and reduced the amount of rum the filling called for. I also added an apple because I didn’t have quite enough pears.

This pie wasn’t the prettiest girl on the block, in the end I still could’ve had more fruit because it reduced so much, and I had to substitute a bit of crisco for butter in my crust because we were low. (Working with crisco in your pie dough is way harder, who knew?) But it certainly was a tasty, and the filling was very buttery but not too sweet. Apparently, I should make it again.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Recipe

katerina — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:34:00 +0000

On Saturday, when I saw a local farm stand selling both rhubarb and strawberries, I offered J a deal. Basically, I would make him, his all time favorite treat, Strawberry Rhubarb Pie – if he did all the dishes. It may have been the quickest exchange of chores in our whole relationship. I have never really been big on pie, but J is. In seven years of being together I have only ever made him this once before, for his birthday, so you can understand his excitement.

Creatively speaking I didn’t have much leeway. He would be disappointed if I modified the filling by throwing in a new spice or flavour, and ever since I discovered Beyond Salmon’s recipe and technique for pastry dough I have been using it every time. J described it as the best pastry he had ever had, so I don’t screw with it.

That means, the only choice I had, in order to entertain myself, was changing the appearance of the pie itself. I had used the lattice technique once before, on a blackberry pie awhile back. However, Sarah from What Smells So Good gave me the idea, via twitter, of trying to make a twisted lattice crust. I had never even heard of this before so it was totally exciting. It was even more challenging and, though far from perfect, came out prettier then the regular lattice don’t you think?

Now, on to taste. I wonder whether this is J’s way to encourage me to make more pie? He said it was the best pie he’d ever had. I thought it was good too, good enough to have for breakfast on Sunday. It fact it didn’t even last a full 24 hours after cutting into it. Did I mention that there are only two of us?
Do you have special dishes you make for your loved ones that aren’t your favorite? I make lamb shanks and meaty pastas more than I otherwise would too.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Recipe
(makes 1 pie)

Dough:
1 batch of pâte brisée

Filling:
2 1/2 cups strawberries, trimmed and quartered
4 cups rhubarb, chopped into 3/4″-1″ pieces
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar

Make and roll out pastry according to instructions. Measure out all filling ingredients but don’t combine. Fill bottom of pie plate with pastry. Cut other pastry shell into strips about 3/4″ thick. Combine filling ingredients and place in pie shell. Make lattice twisting gently as you go – check this out. Seal edges.
Preheat oven to 425F. Bake pie for 20 minutes, reduce heat to 350F and cook for another 45 to 60 minutes. Until browned and bubbling.

More Recipes That Might Interest:
Blackberry and Apple Pie
Rhubarb Oatmeal Bars Recipe
Rhubarb and Ginger Compote
Chocolate Lavender Cake

Day 4: Setting off the Smoke Alarms with Blackberry and Apple Pie

katerina — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:05:00 +0000

J gave me the night off from cooking dinner last night and made a yummy batch of burgers and corn on the cob. This was partially to encourage me to make a pie I think. The man will do just about anything for pie and it worked.

Now you know how on Top Chef every season there is a problem where some contestants dish doesn’t turn out because an oven accidentally gets turned up or down? I never believed in these accidents, until yesterday. I put the pie in the oven at 450F and did a quick clean up. 15 minutes later when I went to turn the oven down to 350F I found it was at 550F! I must’ve knocked the knob when I was cleaning up. Total disaster. After removing the pie, turning down the oven and shutting down the smoke alarms we put it back in for another 30 minutes at 300F.

Such a shame. The pie was perfect, best pie I have ever made by far. Well that is except for the outside of the crust which had a strange smoky oven smell. Ewww…. Didn’t seem to stop J though he ate it right up! So here is the lesson – make sure that oven is actually set to what you think it is.

One slightly smaller victory wrapped in my disaster was my first lattice top. It was really easy to do since I followed the instructions here. It really did allow the steam and juice to escape.

Wild Blackberry and Apple Pie
(makes 1 pie)

1 batch of Pâte Brisée
1 large bowl blackberries
1 apple, peeled and cubed into 1cm pieces
3/4C sugar
6T flour
2t cinnamon
butter
2T lemon juice (only if the blackberries are really sweet)

Preheat the oven to 450F. Follow the instructions to roll out the dough and lay in the pie shell. Mix together the sugar, flour, and cinnamon then toss gently with the blackberries and apple. Pour into the pie shell, if you are using lemon juice pour over top. Follow the instructions to make the lattice. Dot butter in all the holes and bake for 15 minutes at 450F then turn the oven down to 350F and bake for another 30 minutes.

I love blackberry season! Check out these blackberry recipes from last year: Blackberry Scones and Blackberry Frozen Yogourt.

Apple Rhubarb Galette Recipe

katerina — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:23:00 +0000

Update: I am having some problems with photoshop colour palettes and although this looks fine on my mac it looks funny on windows. Please bear with me… but if anyone has any suggestions..

I have been wanting to make a galette after they started showing up on all the blogs a few weeks ago. I am not a big pie maker but there is something about this rustic shape that is really appealing. Plus I think I am finally getting the hang of this pie crust thing. My first attempt at a galette is a little well… attractively challenged but it was very tasty. It actually had a leakage problem and I had to reset one of the walls one when it was in the oven. This is something I don’t recommend by the way. Hot sugar really burns.

Back to the pie, when I saw the local rhubarb in the supermarket I knew it was the way to go. J loves rhubarb. We have actually been trying to grow it but every time it peeks it’s first leaf out of the ground it gets chomped by a deer. I actually caught on camera one very cute little bambi in the yard yesterday…. see there he is looking at me… realizing he has been spotted.

And why bother eating if you can’t eat in peace right? Sproing Sproing…

Deer aside I hear it is nearly impossible to kill when it is going so I think we will have to buy a bigger plant. In fact I heard that the only way to kill it and it’s roots is to set it on fire.This week Wandering Chopsticks is our Weekend Herb Blogging host and this is my entry. I based this recipe on the Rhubarb and Ginger Galette recipe from Simply Recipes.

Apple Rhubarb Galette

1 half recipe of Pâte Brisée from here. (or enough for one 13″ pie crust)
1 granny smith apple, peeled and chopped into 1/4″ pieces
1 1/2C rhubarb, chopped into 1/4″ slices
zest of 1 lemon
1/2t fresh lemon juice
1/2C brown sugar
2T flour
1t vanilla
1T butter

Place rack in middle of the oven, preheat oven to 375F. If you are using homemade pie dough take it out of the fridge. Combine the apple, rhubarb, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, lour and vanilla in a bowl and set aside for ten minutes.
Roll the dough out into a 13″ circle on a piece of parchment. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet. Using a slotted spoon transfer the fruit mixture on the middle of your dough leaving a 2″ border. Discard any excess liquid. Break the butter into pieces and dot on top. Fold the dough up around the fruit, pinching together so it will stay up.
Bake for 35-45 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling.

Check out these other rhubarb recipes:
Rhubarb Ginger Galette
Strawberry and Rhubarb Crumble
Rhubarb Sorbet

Tags: Pie, Baking, Rhubarb, Galette

Daring Bakers: Lemon Meringue Pie

katerina — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:31:00 +0000

The Daring Bakers strike again, this time challenging me with that darn pastry making. After the bostini I felt pretty confident in my egg white whipping abilities – or that of my kitchen aid at least- but pastry is altogether different. In the end though, it was the custard that was my undoing.

Never underestimate the custard. But lets start with what I thought would be the most challenging part – the homemade pie dough. The crust was actually quite successful, in fact I even impressed the boyfriend (a self declared pie expert). He made me promise to save it so I could recreate it for his upcoming birthday with a fruit pie

The custard however, was rather more liquidy then solid and though the flavour is right none of the pictures of it made it through the editing process. So sad! Next time less liquid or more gelatin I guess. It really was tasty though, one of the great things about cooking is that it can still be successful even if it doesn’t look good. Great challenge this month, I am very much looking forward to next month. For the recipe check out this months challenger Jen the Canadian Baker.