The Story of a Make-Shift Pie

I had some beautiful plums. Well, they called them apricots, but they sure tasted like plums.
I also had some mascarpone.

I didn't have a rolling pin, nor did I have pie weights (or dried beans) . . . so, I used a wine bottle and farro.

For the filling, I whipped the mascarpone with some sugar, a drop of vanilla, and the zest of one lime.

I topped it off with the sliced "apricots" (plums). It was highly edible.

Coastal Pie

I am back from vacation but trying to retain my zen-vacation-mindset. I am eating excessive amounts of butter-y baked goods to ease back into the work routine.

I baked a quick peach pie and attempted my first ever lattice-top (I know, such excitement). I cheated and whipped out my favorite (shh- store-bought) pie dough (thank you TJs). I proceeded to crimp my edges and dot my i's. Once my pie crust was ready to go I cut 5 ripe, but still firm-ish, peaches into chunks. I tossed the peaches with 1/4- 1/3 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, the zest of one lemon and a squeeze of the juice.

I added my filling into the pie crust and set to work building my lattice. For a lovely little slide-show from Bon Appetit on how to make a lattice crust (I always thought you just laid the strips on top of one-another... didn't really think that one through) click here. To finish the pie I popped it in to a 350-degree oven for about 45 minutes. 

Gluttonous Berry Pie

In the Presidio, close to the "Spire" by Andy Goldsworthy.

I love being surrounded by fresh berries. They are so sweet and juicy right now that I almost felt guilty baking them – but I did it anyway.

To make the pie dough I combined 2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons sugar. I cut in 12 tablespoons butter until it resembled coarse meal and then slowly added about 1/2 cup of ice water – just enough to make the dough come together but not so much that it gets sticky. I formed the dough into a disk and set it to chill for an hour (or longer).

For the crumble top, I combined 2/3 cup brown sugar, nearly a cup of oats, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon flour and cut in 6 tablespoons of chilled salted butter.

For the filling I put in a cup of blackberries, 1 cup of blueberries and a ton of strawberries, quartered. I tossed them with a generous 1/3 cup of granulated sugar (maybe 1/2 cup), the zest of a lemon, a squeeze of lemon juice and 1 1/2 tablespoons flour. I rolled out the pie dough and laid it in a buttered pie tin, made a neat edge and then added in the fruit mixture. To finish, I heaped all of the crumble topping on the fruit and then popped it into a 375 degree oven for about 40 minutes.

(Jan, this is by the Lombard Gate entrance to the Presidio.)

Crack Pie - thank you Christina Tosi

As I was poring over an old issue of Bon Appetit (I end up keeping each issue for months and then sporadically looking through them until finally I have had them around for almost a year and I do a final read-through and pull out anything that looks interesting) I found an article on the desserts of Christina Tosi - the pastry chef at Momofuku Milk Bar in NYC. I immediately wanted to make one of the recipes but after looking at both the steps involved and the amounts of butter and cream, I knew I had to wait until I was assured that other people would help me eat it. When we made a date to have our friends over I immediately saw my opportunity and dove in to making my very first crack pie.

For great crack pie commentary click here.

The crust was a multi-step process - I won't go into the details because you can find them here, but I will say that you basically have to make a buttery oat cookie to begin. Once you have baked the cookie, you let it cool a bit then you crumble it up, add another round of butter and sugar to re-bind it together, and shmush that into a pie tin so that it resembles a crust.

Once it is formed into a crust, set aside. Next you make the filling which consists of more buttery, sugary, creamy goodness. Pour that into the crust and pop in the oven until it browns. To finish off the pie Tosi lets it cool and then refrigerates it overnight (I gave it 6 hours and it was fine). The pie was described in the article as "rich, salty-sweet" but in the comments online I found people saying that they found it too sweet so I added a little extra salt which was definitely a good call for me.

I liked the pie but I can eat about two bites of it before feeling like I need to go into hibernation, in a good way. It was kind of like a pecan pie without the pecans. Next - Tosi's blueberries and cream cookies.