Month o' Pies, Week 5: Mince Pie

O ho! I have returned to bring you the fifth and final December pie. Never mind that I'm posting it in May; I have backdated this entry to appear as though I stuck with the program. Muahaha. I actually did make the pie on time, yes precious. For New Years! And I haven't blogged since then because this had to be posted first, and it was a bit of a daunting task.

This really is one of my favorite pies, although many people claim not to like mince pie. I think the offending factor might be the slight bitterness in the citrus peels combined with the heavy spices, which themselves are ever so teensily bitter. I like it because it's strong and warm-tasting, and not sickly sweet. The flavors have balance. Sometimes you need a little bitterness to drive the cold winter away. Plus, you can always add a little freshly whipped cream.

On a different note, do you have any idea how impossible it is to find organic candied orange peel? Seriously. It's completely impossible. So I have to make my own, which is kind of tedious but not actually that difficult. If you don't care if your orange peel contains the pesticides of centuries under all that sugar and that its production contributed rather heavily to toxic runoff into streams, it's much easier to just buy a container of candied orange peel. But just in case you want to make your own, here's how.


CANDIED ORANGE PEEL

3 orange peels, quartered and pith scraped out a bit
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
sugar for rolling

1. Start by blanching your peels. This takes out a good deal of bitterness from the pith, and softens the peels for candying. Cover the peels with water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, then drain. Cover with water again. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 more minutes, then drain again. Do this one more time. Then you'll have a pan of blanched peels.

2. When the peels have drained, and cooled a little, cut them into 1/4 to 1/2-inch wide strips. You can set them aside for a few minutes.



3. Add the sugar and water to your saucepan and heat until it boils and comes to 230°F on a candy thermometer. If you don't have one of those, you'll just have to wing it.



It should get very bubbly, and be careful - it's much hotter than boiling water and will stick to you, so try not to splash around in it unless you want severe burns.



4. Add the orange peels and reduce the heat just a little so that it continues to simmer but isn't so angry about it. You want to maintain the heat, but not cook down the syrup so much that it doesn't cover the peels anymore.



Aim for 30-40 minutes of simmering, and check it frequently to make sure the peels are still covered. When they're done, they'll look slightly translucent.



5. One by one, remove the peel pieces using tongs and toss them into some granulated sugar and roll to coat. You can then put them on a cooling rack covered by a piece of parchment paper and simply wait for them to cool. Neat, huh?

So that's how you make candied orange peel. You'll need it - but not all of it - to make a good mince pie.

Oh, did I mention that mince pie (mincemeat pie) used to be made with meat that had gone off, and is heavily spiced to cover up the bad taste? That's pre-refrigeration for you. Later (and now) it's not made with bad meat - or good meat, for that matter - but instead with beef suet. Beef suet is not a delicacy in which I partake, so I find that using butter makes for an awfully good non-beefy mince pie that instead features the flavors of fall fruits. Thank you, Cook's Illustrated.

I should also note that this pie can take the better part of a day to make if you're not prepared. If you have done it before and/or know what you're in for, you can crank it out in about 4 and a half hours.


MINCE PIE

Crust (I found a winner!)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
10 tbsp shortening
1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
6-8 tbsp ice water

Filling
3 lbs flavorful, local, in-season apples (at least a few Grannies in the mix makes it interesting)
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup currants
zest and juice from 1 orange and 1 lemon
1/4 cup diced candied orange peel
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups (maybe more) fresh, local apple cider (this is important! If you're in the Seattle area, I recommend Minea Farm in Woodinville for this one)
1/3 cup brandy

1. For the crust, mix the flour with the salt and sugar as well as you can. Cut in the shortening until it's pretty well mixed but a little sandy-looking. Then cut in the butter until it is almost as mixed as the shortening, but with a few pieces here and there. Add the water (try just 6 tbsp at first) and fold it all together until you can make it adhere to itself. Divide in two pieces, wrap them up, and refrigerate until you need them. You can also save this step for when the mince filling is cooking.

2. Peel, core, and dice your apples. By hand, this takes forever. And I'm not gonna lie, my grandma sent me a peeler-corer-slicer and I FREAKING LOVE IT. What usually takes me at least half an hour took me about five minutes.

It cored, peeled, and spiral-cut all the apples in less than five minutes.



All I had to do was trim the peel bit at the end (maybe eat it) and add cross-cuts to dice them, which also took less than five minutes. You want about 1/4-inch pieces. Chuck them in a large stockpot.



3. Add to the aforementioned stockpot the raisins and currants, citrus zests, juices and peel, brown sugar, spices, butter, and a cup of the cider. Toss it a little to combine.



4. Heat this pot over medium-low until it starts to simmer. It will take awhile, but that's OK. The first time I made this pie, I got too excited and burned it in my attempts to simply make it simmer faster. Don't do that. Actually, you don't have to do much of anything at this point, except let it simmer. For like, three hours. It will let out liquid.



Stir it a bit every so often so it doesn't scorch. Just make sure it's on the lowest heat that will allow it to continue simmering. You don't want to over-stir, either. I did that the second time I made this pie and it turned into a spicy jam pie. Not nearly as exciting.

5. Over time, it should gradually darken and smell absolutely divine.



The lighter bits are the pieces of Granny Smith, and the translucent bits are the pieces of other apple kinds. That's why it's nice to have a mix of apples; you also get a mix of textures and some independence of flavors. But not necessary, if all you have is a bunch of Pippins or Galas or something, you should be ok. Just keep simmering. It's a good time to make the crust, this three hours. You don't have to do it beforehand.

6. If you really need to, as it's cooking down ever so slowly, you can add a touch more cider. But only if it's threatening to scorch and is all dried up, which it shouldn't be at the proper heat. It should be gradually getting slightly viscous with just the smidgeniest bit of apple-butterness to it. After three hours it should look roughly like this.



At this point you should stir every few minutes. No more than three minutes in between, but don't stir it constantly, either. Cook like that for 20 minutes, and take out that pie dough from the refrigerator.

7. Now you can stir in the last half cup of cider, and the brandy. Now it really smells good. Cook that down just ten more minutes, and preheat the oven to 400°F.



8. So. That crust you have that's been refrigerated. Roll half of it out to a 12-inch circle and put it in a 9-inch pie pan, and put all the mince filling into it. Trim the edge to about half an inch beyond the lip of the pie pan.



9. Take the other crust half, roll it out to a 12-inch circle, and use a crimped-edge pastry roller to cut ten evenly-spaced strips in it.



10. Using all the cleverness at your disposal, lay the strips on the pie - five going one way, five perpendicular to that - and weave them. It's really not that difficult. Lay down all the ones going in one direction first. Then, as you lay down the other direction, just lift up the ones you need to lift to get the dough underneath and in a weave pattern. You can figure it out. Trim any overhang to match the lower crust.



11. Although you may have used up your cleverness, hopefully you still have some skill left in your fingers to crimp the edge as nicely as I did.



Bake that pie in the lower third of the oven for 45 minutes. If your oven runs hot on one side, rotate the pie halfway through baking. It doesn't hurt to cover the edges of the crust with foil at that point, too. They like to burn, as evidenced by my final product.



Regardless, this mince pie was really good.

And THAT concludes pie month.

Month o' Pies, Week 4 (part 2): Cranberry-Pecan Pie

This is the pie I didn't know I was going to make. After all, nobody expects a cranberry-pecan pie, do they?

People had all sorts of interesting and helpful suggestions as I was wracking my brain to come up with a fifth pie for pie month (yes, I know it's only the fourth, but they aren't in any particular order). Everything from Nesselrode pie to crème de menthe to chocolate pudding to the abominable cherpumple. But cranberry-pecan - it sounded so simple, yet so unique. Different from all my other pies. Thank you, Miss Amy the koala keeper, for the idea and the recipe!

I baked this pie in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. I think that's probably why Santa never showed up. He knows when you're awake, see, and doesn't want you to glimpse him, so he skips your home. I also don't have a chimney, and I lock my doors and windows, so he'd have had a time of it anyway.

Let me just say that organic (non-GMO) corn syrup is frustratingly difficult to find. The only one I can find is by Wholesome Sweeteners, but it has vanilla in it already. I didn't really know how to adjust my recipe (which calls for vanilla) to accommodate, as I saw no instructions on the corn syrup bottle - so I just used half a teaspoon of vanilla instead of one teaspoon. It seemed to be fine.

It's actually kind of an easy pie. Or maybe I'm just settling into the piemaking groove. But there was no prebaked crust to prebake or meringue to beat or even apples to peel and slice. Just dough, some filling, and a good hot oven.


CRANBERRY-PECAN PIE
filling recipe courtesy of Steve Evans, pie extraordinaire

Crust
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp shortening
3 tbsp cold cubed butter
3-4 tbsp ice water

1. Make the dang crust. You should know how by now. Mix up the flour and salt and sugar. Then mix in the shortening really well. Then cut in the butter until it's just a little crumbly. Then fold in the water, quick as a bunny, until you can make it just come together in a ball. Less water is better, if you can get away with it.

2. Roll it out to a 12-inch circle. Put the dough in a 9-inch glass pie plate and trim the edges, fold them under, and flute.

Filling
6 oz chopped pecans
about that same volume in fresh or thawed frozen cranberries
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1 little wee bottle of bourbon (1-2 oz)
pinch of sea salt
3 tbsp butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile, mix up the chopped pecans and cranberries and put in the crust. It should fill it about halfway. Don't skimp on the cranberries. I wish I'd added more.

2. Whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, corn syrup, vanilla, bourbon, and salt. Just mix it until the brown sugar is more or less dissolved. It should be dark and kind of thick.



3. Drizzle in the butter, and whisk as you go. It should sort of creamify the whole thing. It'll be a little less apt to bubble thinly.



4. Slowly pour all this into the pie shell to fill in the gaps between the pecans and cranberries. It should get relatively close to the top but not spill over (if it gets too full and you still have more, bake it in a separate ramekin.



5. Stick it in the oven, and bake somewhere in the range of 45 minutes to an hour. The center should be a wee bit jiggly, but not very much and not as much as the pumpkin in the previous pie. I had it in for an hour, but I probably didn't need that much time. Anyway, you should definitely smell it.

Serve these pieces small; they're sweet. They are fantastic with brandied whipped cream (as found in the "pumpkin" pie recipe), or regular whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream.

Another successful pie, made and (mostly) consumed. I'm beginning to think I cannot fail at pie.

Month o' Pies, Week 4 (part 1): "Pumpkin" Pie

This December has been difficult.

Aside from it being my first Christmas away from my hometown (home state, even), I unexpectedly lost a very good friend, who was quite close to my heart, to cancer. Most people that know me know that the most important part of my life is my cats. It's true, of course. Tom had been with me for 17 years, since he was a kitten and I was only eight. I miss him terribly. It's been almost two weeks and I'm definitely still reeling.

Forgive me for skipping a few weeks of pie baking and blogging, but sometimes other parts of life take priority, you know?

As they say, however... the show must go on. How can it not?


I actually made two pies last week, within two days of each other, right before Christmas. I'm more or less back on schedule, as long as I make my final pie tomorrow.

This pie is pumpkin. "Pumpkin," rather. It's actually made from another type of winter squash called "kabocha." Kabocha squash comes in different colors and varieties; the one I used is one of the more common ones, simply named "green kabocha." I used to find several varieties at the University District farmer's market in Seattle, but this one I found at a Scottsdale Whole Foods.



It's a little sweeter, drier, and more flavorful than a sugar pumpkin (the kind used for most pumpkin pies). This is my second year making it, and I think it turns out rather well. I only take issue with the top cracking. It's not necessarily unattractive, and certainly doesn't make it taste bad, but it is a little alarming. I can't help but picture tiny piewalkers skipping merrily along the top of the pie and falling to their deaths in the fault lines. Ah, well.


"PUMPKIN" PIE

credit goes mostly Cook's Illustrated for the pie filling and whipped cream recipes
1 kabocha squash

1. Start by preheating the oven to 350°F. Wash and cut your squash in half, whichever way allows the halves to be the flattest. I cut mine along the equator. Scoop out the seeds. Place the squash halves in one large glass dish (or two smaller ones, depending on how they fit) with a half-inch to an inch of water.

2. Bake for 90 minutes, until the whole thing is soft. It should look soft, smell like sweet squash, and be sort of glistening all over. Let it cool completely (remove from water as soon as you can).



When it's cool, scoop out the flesh (you can eat the skin, too, but it's not as effective in the pie).

Crust
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp shortening
3 tbsp butter
3-4 tbsp ice water

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Make the crust as in the previous pie (only, it's a single crust instead of a double). That is; mix together the dry ingredients, mix in the shortening until it's finely crumbly, and cut in the butter until it's coarsely crumbly. Then quickly fold in the ice water until you can make it come together in a ball. Since it's a single-crust pie, don't split it in half.

2. Roll out the dough ball on a floured surface to a 12-inch circle (flouring it more if it starts to stick). Transfer it carefully to a 9-inch pie dish (folding in quarters works), trim, patch, and tuck under the overhanging edge, and flute prettily.

3. I tried something new this time in an attempt to make crust-prebaking more successful. Since my crusts tend to shrink, I decided instead of just using pie weights on foil, I'd also put a second pie plate inside the crust, to hold the sides so they couldn't shrink.



If you have something that fits a little better, you can try that. Anyway, bake the crust like that for 25 minutes, remove all the foil and weights and second plate, and bake another 5.

The crust didn't shrink, but the pressure on the sides from the other plate resulted in strange little indentations from the foil.



Oh well.

Filling
2 cups baked kabocha squash flesh (18 oz if you're weighing it)
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp sea salt
2/3 cup cream
2/3 cup whole milk
4 eggs

1. While the crust is baking, make this. It should take roughly the same amount of time as the crust takes. If you have a food processor, use it to puree the squash with the sugar, spices, and salt. Puree it until it looks even and not at all stringy (kabocha is not a very stringy squash, so this shouldn't be too much of an issue).



2. Chuck this mixture into a saucepan and heat it up over medium heat until it starts to get mad. When it's starting to get quite hot, start stirring it to prevent the bottom from scorching. It should look dark like chocolate.



(When it's really hot, and spitting a bit, and shiny, the crust should be just about ready to come out. Take the crust out of the oven, put the oven rack on the bottom, and turn the oven up to 400°F. Set the prebaked crust on top of the oven (but not on a burner) to keep it warm.)

3. Keep stirring the squash and add the cream and milk. Whisk them in until it's well mixed, and bring it up to a simmer. It should be more pumpkin-pie colored at this point. When it's reached a simmer, take it off the heat.



4. Don't worry about cleaning the food processor, just toss in the eggs (well, not in the shells) and whir them up until they're foamy and mixed. Just a few seconds, really. Keep it running and start cautiously pouring the squash mixture through the feed chute.



(By the way, I don't know if a blender works quite right for this recipe, but if you don't have a food processor, it doesn't hurt to try one).

Once you have about half of it through the tube (with the machine running), turn off the machine and dump the rest of the squash in. Run the processor 30 seconds, or until everything's all mixed together.



5. Hopefully your pie shell is still warm. Pour the filling (as much as will fit, anyway) into the crust. If you have leftover, save it (put it in a pourable measuring cup, even) and add it in a few minutes.



6. Bake the pie on the bottom oven rack for 5 minutes - you can now add the rest of your filling if necessary - and continue baking for 20 more minutes or so. When you take the pie out of the oven, the center should be slightly wiggly (but not super wiggly) if you gently move the pie plate around. I think mine was a teeny bit underdone (could have taken 5 more minutes, maybe), but every pie is different.

Put it on a wire rack. It should be all puffy and delightful.



After it cools at least an hour - preferably more - the top will have settled. It will have gotten quite shiny, and may have developed cracks. I don't know how to avoid that, but it's not really a big deal, anyway.

Whipped Cream
1 1/3 cups chilled cream
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp brandy

1. Mix the cream and sugar in a bowl.

Beat it until it starts getting voluminous, then add the brandy. Beat it just a tad more until it holds its shape. I overbeat it slightly, completely by accident, but it didn't turn to butter so it's not too horrible.

Really, it will turn into butter quite quickly, so be careful.

Serve a piece with a spoonful of whipped cream, and you'll find you have an extremely delightful slice of pie.

So, my little Tom, I know you would enjoy stealing some of this pie while it cools. Just as you have enjoyed stealing sweet potato pie, and apple pie, in years past. It makes me sad to know I can leave it out on the counter now and never find sections of crust inexplicably missing, but wherever you are - I bet they have tons of pie.

Month o' Pies, Week 2: Apple Pie

Three pounds of apples down, six more to go (more applesauce and apple crumble, I am thinking; but that's neither here nor there).

Last week I naïvely thought that making a pie a week meant that I couldn't realistically eat all the pie without some help and would have to give some pieces away (or at least freeze for the future). I am often stingy with the food I make, though; it is crafted from expensive, thoughtfully sourced ingredients and put together in an extremely time-consuming fashion, and frankly - most people don't care, they just want free food. Nonetheless! 'Tis the season for generosity! For charity! For giving and sharing and selflessness! Besides, how can I possibly consume a whole pie in a week by myself?

I don't know, but somehow I managed. The lime'on meringue pie was quite delicious, might I add, but I must now experience the karmic nagging pangs of guilt of not sharing such a bounty. This week will be different. I have apples up the creek (and they were free). I can give some of this away. I intend to. Maybe I'll bring it into work.

Some of it, anyway.

(Maybe my New Year's resolution should be to be less of a greedy fat kid)

This is one of the easiest pies to make. No beating of egg whites or chilling dough 32984029384 times. You can even slice it warm. It's not an all-day pie. In short, anyone can make it, as long as they have the ingredients, a pie pan, a rolling pan, and a working oven. Or if you're crafty, maybe only the first one.

The no-chill-required dough I must credit to my mum, although I made some changes to it to suit my tastes.


APPLE PIE

Pie
3 lbs apples, whatever variety as long as there's something tart in there - I had a mix of Granny Smiths and Golden Delicious and Gala
1 tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
fresh grated nutmeg (how much? I don't know, maybe 1/8 tsp)

Crust
2 cups flour
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt (next time, I will increase this to 1 tsp)
1/3 cup shortening (again, try to spring for a non-hydrogenated, organic brand like Jungle. Spectrum works in a pinch, but is a bit crumbly for my taste)
6 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
5-7 tbsp cold water

1. Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples. Ha! I did this last week and froze them. So it was pretty easy for me, I just put them in a bowl. Anyway, they should be less than 1/2-inch thick, or they won't cook all the way. I don't like crunchy apples in my pie. Toss them with the lemon juice.

Mine are a little brown from freezing and thawing. I don't really care; they're going in a pie.

2. In another bowl, whisk the sugar for the pie with the flour, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. This is your pie seasoning. Don't put it on the apples yet, they'll get too soupy as they sit. Make sure you mix the sugar well with the other stuff, because otherwise it may not mix evenly with the apples. I don't like encountering pockets of nutmeg in my food, and you probably don't either.



Set this, and the apples, aside for later.

3. In a largish bowl, whisk the flour for the crust with the sugar and salt to combine. Then cut in the shortening with a fork or pastry blender and mix as well as you can, so it looks kind of like wet sand. Except more like fatty flour.



4. Add the butter to the flour and shortening, and cut that in too. If the pieces are too big to start with, you'll have to work harder. You want to blend it pretty well. The whole thing should be kind of a pale yellow, but you don't want it to be so well blended that there aren't itty pieces of butter here and there in it.



5. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of water over the whole thing and quickly fold with a spatula to combine as much as you can. Add a few more, and do the same thing. Don't add any more than 7. After about 5, it should look kind of shaggy, like this:



When you get there, you just need a smidgen more water. Add it and continue to fold.

6. When you think you have enough water in there for the dough to stick together, or you've reached 7 tablespoons, take the dough out onto the counter and squoosh it together a few times with your hands. Don't ever overwork it. Just make it come together in a cute ball.



7. Separate the ball into two equal-sized pieces. These will be your top and bottom crusts. Flour the counter, put one piece of dough on it, and flour the dough. You're ready to start rolling it out.



8. Roll it, rotating it as you go so you roll all parts evenly. When it cracks, just pinch it back together. If it starts to stick, flour the top and flip it over. Try to keep it circular.



It should end up to be about 1/8-1/4-inch thick.

9. You can now transfer it to your 9-inch pie plate. Fold in quarters and quickly pick it up and plop it in, and unfold it again. Make sure you ease it into the corners of the pan.



Leave the overhang for now.

10. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Roll out the second piece, the same as the first. Leave it on the counter and work on the apples.

Toss the apples with the spiced sugar mixture, until the sugar appears to dissolve and the apples let out a bunch of liquid.



Then you can put the apples in the bottom crust...



...and the top crust on the apples.



11. Trim the crust all the way around so you have an even amount of overhang all around (about half an inch). If there are some lacking areas, supplement with the cut-off scraps. Then pinch the top and bottom crusts together and fold everything underneath so you get a rounded edge all around that is flush with the pie dish.



Flute! However you prefer.



Cut some slits in the top. They don't have to be fancy.



12. Place the whole pie in the middle of the oven, with a baking sheet under it (on the next rack down, preferably) to catch any fruit juice that bubbles up through, because there probably will be some. Bake for an hour.

In the meantime, you need to do something with your pie crust scraps.



Some people make cookies with them (sprinkle sugar on the top and bake). Some people throw them out. Some people even eat them. Really, who would do that?



I won't tell if you won't.

13. When your pie is done, it should be a light golden brown, with the edges a little darker, and fruit juice may or may not have come bubbling up through the crust. If so, that just means your pie is wild and free. Take pride.

Happy holidays, and joyful baking!