Chocolate Pudding Pie

So obviously I haven't posted in a while. Thanksgiving hit, and it all went downhill. I went to New York with my Honors Chorus at school, and I had an amazing time! Now, I'm back into school and getting back to the way things were. The long break was so very lovely though=) I have been baking, though. It just seems whenever it comes time for me to post about it, I am unmotivated and something else grabs my interest. This must be a sign. I'm frustrated with Blogger sometimes, too, and just need a more relaxed blog style for a bit. That being said, I still want to post recipes and my creations.


However, I want to go back to the basics and blog for myself in more of a recipe book style. I might just post the pictures and recipe and say whether I liked the dish or not. This will just be a simple way of blogging for me since I still want to document my baking adventures. Hopefully this is acceptable and works out for me. By doing this I should be able to blog more often without any pressure. Of course one day I will feel the need to actually blog about things and when that day comes I will certainly return refreshed and better than ever! The post seems highly hypocritical since I am writing quite a lengthy post as it is.


This was called a chocolate "cream" pie, but I would say "pudding". It's crazy that I would make this kind of dessert if you knew me. I am by no means a chocolate fan, and this is a pretty concentrated amount of chocolate! But, balanced out well by a heaping amount of fresh whipped cream, this was quite tasty. My whole family enjoyed it and I have to admit I did too.

(Gotta make some chocolate things to make the family happy, amirite?)

Chocolate Pudding Pie
found at The Kitchen Sink

For crust
1 1/3 cups graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

For filling
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large egg yolks
3 cups whole milk
5 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla

For topping
3/4 cup chilled heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder, for dusting

Make crust:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.

Stir together crumbs, butter, sugar and cinnamon and press on bottom and up side of a 9-inch pie plate (1-quart capacity). Bake until crisp, about 15 minutes, and cool on a rack.

Make filling:
Whisk together sugar, cornstarch, salt, and yolks in a 3-quart heavy saucepan until combined well, then add milk in a stream, whisking. Bring to a boil over moderate heat, whisking, then reduce heat and simmer, whisking, 1 minute (filling will be thick).

Force filling through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, then whisk in chocolates, butter, and vanilla, stirring until the chocolate and butter is melted. Cover surface of filling with a buttered round of wax paper and cool completely, about 2 hours.

Spoon filling into crust and chill pie, loosely covered, at least 6 hours.

Make topping:
Just before serving, beat cream with sugar in a bowl using an electric mixer until it just holds stiff peaks, then spoon on top of pie.

Place cocoa powder into a fine mesh strainer and sift the powder over the whipped cream. Serve chilled.

Cooks’ note:
Pie (without topping) can be chilled up to 1 day.

(The Big) Apple Crumble Pie

I guess I should get this started! I have a lot of recipes to post from Thanksgiving, and as usual, not a lot of time to post about them=( It is Thanksgiving break for me, but.....

I'M GOING TO NEW YORK ON MONDAY!

You may have remembered me mentioning this in previous posts, and now it's finally time!

To refresh your memory, here's the basic need-to-know's of the trip:

My school's Honors Chorus was asked to participate in composer Tim Janis's American Christmas Carol concert on December 2nd at Carnegie Hall in New York. It is a live concert composed by Tim Janis featuring many soloists and a 200 person student choir (that's where we fit in!) Since we learned about our trip back in March, we've had to memorize a ton of music. 10 pieces in all. All are Christmas inspired and I can honestly say I like them all.

Here we all are at PBS filming Tim Janis's Celebrate America in Pittsburgh, where we first got to meet him. (I'm on the right side, second row, second one in!)

Some Highlights of the Trip:
-Ferry over to Liberty Island and Ellis Island
-See Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera
-Visit the Empire State Building
-Time Square, Macy's shop windows, and St. Patrick's Cathedral
-See West Side Story
-Guggenheim Museum and Planet Hollywood
-See Marry Poppins
- And... a SURPRISE??

We leave the 29th, and return the 4th. It's going to be amazing. The best part is I get to share it with some of my closest friends=) Oh, and I'll do my best to take some food pics. If the food is worthy enough!


Okay, now on to the recipe at hand. The Pioneer Woman and Joy the Baker. Two of the most amazing food bloggers out there? Quite possibly. And what happens when you team them together in a recipe? You, my friends, are about to find out.



As I thought of the desserts I would choose for Thanksgiving this year, my family gave me the general consensus that there MUST be pie. There ended up being 3, but we'll get there. First up, was an apple pie. I chose a "dreamy" version that I saw on the Pioneer Woman's blog. I liked how there was a bit more to the pie than just throwing you apples in. In this recipe, you also make a creamy filling to pour in as well. That intrigued me so I knew I definitely wanted to try this one out.


Where does Joy come in? Well... the Pioneer Woman's pie dough recipe involves crisco, which is a no-go for me. I have already tried Joy's pie crust recipe and I knew I loved it, so I went with it instead. It NEVER fails. I might be getting ahead of myself, but it is the flakiest butteriest pie crust ever. It's pretty fool proof as well. I do believe that for this being my second time around it was a bit easier to make as well, naturally. I love this pie crust recipe, and you should too.
Note: You will have to half her pie crust recipe since you only need 1 crust as there is a crumble topping.


This was not too hard to put together. I did it over three days just because I felt like it. I made the apple filling one day, the crust another, and then put it together on the third day.
NOTE: I made one boo-boo. For some reason I cooked my apples in the cinnamon sugar mixture beforehand on the stove. To remedy this, I reduced the cooking time a tad, but otherwise I don't think it affected the outcome.


Served up with some cinnamon ice cream or whipped cream, this was luscious. It had more to it than your average apple pie thanks to the creamy filling. Secret time: We ended up finishing this pie before it was even Thanksgiving Day. Whoops!


Dreamy Apple Pie
from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients
1 whole Unbaked Pie Crust

Filling:
3 whole Large (4 Or 5 Small) Granny Smith Apples, Peeled, Cored, And Sliced Thin
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour
1 cup Heavy Cream
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1/8 teaspoons Cinnamon

Topping:
7 Tablespoons Butter
3/4 cups All-purpose Flour
1/2 cups Brown Sugar
1/4 cups Pecans (more To Taste)
Dash Of Salt

Preparation Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out pie dough and place it in a pie pan. Decorate the edges as desired.

Add apple slices to a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together cream, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour over apples. Pour apples into pie shell.

In the bowl of a food processor (or you can mix by hand) combine butter, flour, sugar, pecans (chop if you’re not using a food processor), and salt. Mix until everything comes together in clumps. Pour topping over apples.

Attach foil to the edges and lay a piece of flat foil loosely over the top of the pie. Place pie pan on top of a rimmed cookie sheet and bake for one hour. At the end, remove foil and allow to finish baking and browning. Can bake for up to 15 or 20 minutes more if necessary.

Remove from oven when pie is bubbly and golden brown. Serve warm with hard sauce, whipped cream, or ice cream.

Joy's Pie Crust
from Joy the Baker
makes a double crusted 9-inch pie crust

2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter
2 1/2 (12 ounces) cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (5 to 6 ounces) buttermilk

1. Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces and place in the freezer to chill for 15 minutes. Measure out the buttermilk and store in the refrigerator to keep it cold (you could even put it in the freezer for a few minutes too).

2. Sift together the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Take the cold butter from the freezer and toss it with the flour mixture.

3. Dump the cold butter cubes and flour mixture onto a large work area for rolling. With a rolling pin, roll the mixture, flattening the butter cubes with the flour into long, thin, floured butter sheets. Work quickly to ensure that the butter stays cold. Below is what the rolled butter and flour look like after I’ve gathered them together on the work surface a bit.

4. Place the flour and flattened butter back in the large bowl and chill for 10 minutes. When the butter is cold, remove the bowl from the refrigerator, make a small well in the center of the flour and butter mixture. Add the cold buttermilk to the bowl all at once. Begin to bring the dough together with one hand ( keep the other hand free to answer the phone). Moisten all of the flour with the milk, using your hand to break up large clumps of milk and flour. The dough will be rather shaggy, but you can add another tablespoon of buttermilk, if you see that all your flour isn’t moistened. Form the dough into two disks. The disks will be rough, and hard to shape together, but once they rest in the fridge for an hour, they’ll be easier to roll out.

5. Chill the dough for at least an hour in the refrigerator. At this point, the dough will keep in the fridge for up to three days, or in the freezer for up to three weeks. For freezing, roll the dough out into sheets and wrap them in plastic film.

6. Roll out the top crust large enough to cut a 12-inch circle.

Transfer the pie filling mixture to the pie shell. Moisten the border of the bottom crust by brushing it lightly with water and place the top crust over the filling. Trim the overhang of the top crust so that there is only 1/2-inch of overhand. Tuck the overhand under the bottom crust boarder and press down all around to seal it. Crimp the border using a fork or your fingers and make about 5 evenly spaced 2-inch slashes starting about 1 inch from the center of the pie and radiating toward the edge. Cover the pie loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 1 hour before baking. This will chill and relax the pastry, preventing shrinking.

Blackberry Pie

I'm kicking myself. I was kicking myself. I probably will continue to kick myself every time I read this post.

I made a pie. A darn good pie. A pie that I was apprehensive of, but realized it all came together wonderfully. I followed the easy steps, remained patient and accepting, and was rewarded with the fruits of my labor. ;)

So, so flaky. Honestly, it was a perfect crust!

What do I have to show for it? Nothing really. I didn't make it at my house and I forgot my camera=((((( I immediately took pictures when I got home, but it would have been great to show you the step by step process!

Mmmm... blackberry juices!

As I mentioned before, I have a job babysitting my two little cousins on certain weekdays. They are at the great age where they can amuse themselves all on their own. They don't need me to constantly watch them and play with them (thank goodness). However, a small downside is the fact that at least 4 neighborhood boys come over to play daily. As much as I like hearing them call me "Miss Sherry", thus making me feel quite powerful, it can be a handful.

My aunt Nancy, the one who gave me this job, does allow me to have free reign of her kitchen while I'm there. Jackpot. So you could definitely say I take advantage of that. My aunt and I are on the same page when it comes to food. I love just having conversations with her about our latest baking or cooking adventures. She gives me great advice and ideas. She has more experience than me, and I enjoy learning from her. She has also gotten into bread baking and I'm, so jealous! She's helping me out a lot and is even letting me borrow her amazing bread baking book while she's on vacation! So expect some bread to show on here;)

Note: Reapply more whipped cream after every bite.

Back to pie. The pie dough tutorial I used was from Joy the Baker. It is genius. And, it is a great chance to take step by step pictures. But wait, I forgot my camera... yay...

I also used her Blueberry Blackberry Pie recipe. I only used blackberries because that's what I had. Have I mentioned I love my neighbor Beth? She supplied me with fresh blackberries from her mountain house.

This was my first "outside picture" ever. I kinda like it!
However, I get paranoid about neighbors watching me and thinking I'm crazy...

Making the filling was so easy. And extremely picture worthy... I just keep making myself feel worse and worse now=(

I made a mistake, however, I promised the neighborhood boys they could all have a slice. The pie itself took forever to cool! So I actually had to go home before they could have a slice. By this point I had a camera. Thank goodness!! It didn't cool until later that night where my mom and I swallowed down some pieces. My aunt also came over to grab a slice or two.

Having some blackberries spill out of your piece is perfectly normal.
In fact, it's a photography must!

So end result? I love pie. I love pie crust. I love blackberry pie. I loved this pie. I got soo many compliments about the crust. It was extremely flaky, which I think makes it all the better. I loved everything about this pie. So go make a pie this summer! I even think I'll be making another!

Blackberry Pie
from Joy the Baker
Ingredients
6 cups blackberries
1 cup sugar, and more for sprinkling the top
1/2 cup ap flour
pinch of salt
zest of 1/2 a lemon juice of 1/2 a lemon 1/4 of bread crumbs or graham cracker crumbs 1 egg beaten for egg wash

Start off by making the Buttermilk Pie Crust. While the dough is resting in the fridge, make the berry pie filling.

To make the filling put the rinsed berries into a large bowl and gently stir in the sugar, flour, salt, zest and juice. Let sit for five minutes. Taste the filling and add more lemon if necessary. (I did)

Remove the chilled pie crust from the fridge and roll out on a well floured work surface. Drape one rolled out dough into the pie plate and trim, leaving about 1/2-inch of excess dough overhang.

Sprinkle bread crumbs or crumbled graham crackers into the bottom of the unbaked pie shell. Scoop in the fruit mixture and spread evenly with the back of a spoon. Moisten the edges of the pie dough with egg wash.

Drape the other rolled out pie dough over the pie. Trim to a 1/2-inch over hang. The egg wash will help the two stick together. Tuck the two pie crusts under a bit so the dough is flush with the edge of the pie plate. Crimp with your fingers or a fork to seal. Cut four vent holes into the top of the pie crust.

Place pie in the fridge while oven preheats.

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Place a cookie sheet on the lowest shelf to catch any bubble over.

Coat the top and sides of the pie with egg wash. Sprinkle generously with granulated sugar. Bake at 425 degrees F for 30 minutes then reduce the oven to 375 degrees F and bake pie for another 30 minutes or until the crust is a beautiful golden brown and the filling is bubbling up through the slits. If the pie seems to be browning too quickly, make a loose foil tent for the pie while it bakes.

Transfer the pie to a rack and let it cool and settle for at least 30 minutes before serving. (I obviously waited much much longer for it to settle)

You MUST top your piece of pie with a TON of whipped cream!! Because it's good, that's why!

Browned Butter Pecan Pie

With all the left over goodies in my house during the holidays, it just didn't feel right to not give this pie some special attention. So I waited a few days to make it so all the others could clear out.

I haven't made a pecan pie ever in my life. And besides having a small sample of it at a Williams Sonoma store, I've never even tasted it before. In fact, I've never really made a pie before come to think of it. I did make a lemon cream pie, but with a store bought graham cracker crust, so it doesn't count.



I initially was looking at a recipe on and msn cooking page, but my mind was made up when I saw this browned butter pecan pie on Cookie Madness's blog. Also, I took a million pictures of this thing because I was sooo proud of it! I haven't tried it yet because it needs to cool and I'm off to work, but as soon as I try it I'll let you know!

Old Favorite Browned Butter Pecan Pie

1 ½ cups pecan halves
1 (4 oz) stick butter (regular or unsalted)
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup (or use ½ dark plus ½ light)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 unbaked pie shell – use homemade or refrigerated

Lay 1 cup of the pecan halves on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for about 6-8 minutes or until toasted. Let cool, then chop so that you have 1 cup chopped toasted pecans and about a half cup of pecan halves (these will be the border).

Melt the butter in saucepan set over medium heat and cook it just until it starts to brown. Remove from heat and let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Whisk the eggs lightly in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the sugar, corn syrup, vanilla and salt. Pour in the semi-cooled browned butter.

Put the chopped pecans in the unbaked pie shell and pour the filling over the top. Use the remaining 1/2 cup pecan halves to make a border. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees F. and bake for another 35-45 minutes** or until the sides are set but the center (about a 3 inch circle in the middle) is still jiggly. Remove from oven. Pie will set as it cools. Let it cool at room temperature for a few hours. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve. You can keep it at room temperature, but it won’t be as stiff.

Note: Deep dish pies usually bake 400 for 10 minutes and 325 for 45 minutes while smaller pie tins usually take the original amount of 400 for 10 minutes and 325 for 35 minutes.

Added later that same day: There are no words to describe the wonderfulness of this pie! Although I have nothing to compare this to, I know I never want to try any other pecan pie in my life!!! The sweetness of it is definitely there, and I love it for that! Ahh... the gooeyness is incredible! I also think the crust from Joy the Baker that I used was a perfect choice. Make this gloriousness this holiday season!!

A bit of catching up

So I have a bit of old business to attend to. First off, a long long time ago (like three weeks), I made these delicious drumsticks! My cooked marinade sauce didn't get thick at all, but it was extremely wonderful! They tasted barbeque-y, I loved the darker spots=), and a bit asian-y with the addition of sesame seeds. We had brown rice with it and I pretty much soaked mine with the cooked marinade sauce. Over all, 3 thumbs up.

Sweet & Sticky Chicken Drumsticks
from Tracey's Culinary Adventures

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 fresh rosemary sprigs
5 garlic cloves, halved
10 to 12 chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

Combine the vinegar, honey, brown sugar, soy sauce, rosemary sprigs and garlic cloves in a large, resealable plastic bag. Shake and squeeze the contents of the bag to dissolve the honey and the brown sugar. Add the chicken to the bag and seal, squeezing out as much air from them as possible. Marinate in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 450 F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Remove the chicken drumsticks from the bag, reserving the marinade, and arrange them on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until the skin is caramelized and very dark in spots, 30 to 35 minutes.

Meanwhile place the marinade in a small saucepan. Bring the marinade to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook over low heat until thick, about 15 minutes.

Use a pastry brush to brush some of the cooked marinade on the cooked chicken. Sprinkle the chicken with the sesame seeds and chopped parsley before serving.

Then there was the lemon cream pie. I made this while staying at my grandma's house. That said, I couldn't make anything too sophisticated with my left over lemon curd, (like a slew of lemon cookie type recipes I was looking at). She had limited ingredients and I didn't want to make her pay for a bunch of expensive items I'd need. So I settled on a harmless and easy to make lemon cream pie. I did need to buy a pie crust, and yes it was just your store bought graham cracker crust. Like I said earlier, I didn't have much to work with. Then all else I had to buy was some whipping cream.

I didn't use a recipe really, just the rest of my lemon curd (1 1/2-2 cups left maybe??), which into I folded 1 cup of whipping cream (which I beat until stiff enough), and a store bought pie crust to put it in. No fancy topping and I wouldn't put whipped cream on it since it's already in it. Then I just let it chill over night. Simple.