Snow Day Pi Day 2017

For Pi Day 2017, we had a snow day and my mother on hand to help watch the kids while I made pie. Score! As a thank you to mom, I made the Rhubarb Custard Pie featured here. Her Grandma Helen used to make it back in the day. I experimented with putting this in a different pie dish this time. I made it in my mom's heavier ceramic pottery dish last time I made it at her house and it came out really well. I think the heavier ceramic/pottery stuff works better. It gets nice and hot, which I think helps the crust flake up and the custard cook evenly. I'm imagining something akin to radiant (under-the-floor) heat that some fancy people have in their homes (sounds delightful!). Anyway, this pie came out bangin' awesome. I baked it in my white Corningware deep dish at 400 F for about 45 minutes. I've been eating lots of it. AND, I traded a few slices to my baker guru neighbor in exchange for a couple slices of her heavenly Lemon Meringue Pie that she made for Pi Day 2017. Thanks Angela!

Current Pie Tally: 218

Baby Shower Pie Duo

I'm really hitting my stride with these two: Apple Crumb Pie and Chocolate Pudding Pie! Everything about these babies was spot on - flaky crust, ideal whipped cream texture, chocolately richness, crispy crumb topping with perfectly toasted pecans. The two pictured were gobbled up at a neighborhood baby shower a couple weeks ago. Substitutions for the apple pie are as follows: I used arrowroot starch instead of cornstarch, fresh-squeezed orange juice instead of apple cider, and pecans instead of walnuts for the topping. For the chocolate pudding pie, I omitted the coffee ingredients as usual and used plain non-chocolate graham crackers for the crust. I will also make one additional note about the Chocolate Pudding Pie. I have been substituting Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate sometimes when we have some and I don't want to make a special trip to buy the Ghirardelli stuff. We seem to always have enough of the unsweetened on hand, but the bittersweet is the one I'm talking about. The pie is just as good I think, but different somehow. It's maybe missing that one extra level of richness that the Ghirardelli Bittersweet stuff has and I think the texture is a tiny bit firmer with the Trader Joe's chocolate, which is not a bad thing in either case. Just, as I said, different.

Current Pie Tally: 217