gimme some pie!

Well, I didn't think I was going to even get to school today because again, there was a tornado warning, but it only ended up being a thunderstorm. I'm SO sick of this weather, plus it's getting cold. Florida, I loved here firstly because of the Navy, but secondly, because it is warm! Supposedly. Anyways, I got there safely and all. Thank goodness.

Todays lesson was part II of pies. That is fruit pies and cream pies. I'm not hot on cream pies so I was glad that we got apple pies. Unfortunately, we had to 6x the pie crust recipe, to make 2 homestyle apple pies, and 4 Mrs. Smith pies (industrial canned apple pies) and 1 apple steusel crumble pie. Yeah, lets just say lab took a good 3 1/2 hours. We got out 35 minutes after class was suppose to have ended and I didn't even eat any, cause well...the amount of butter in those crusts scared me.


My friends Danni, Kim, Pierre and Scott (I believe that's his name) made the butterscotch pie above. All the cream pies had to have a prebaked pie shell:

CLASSIC PIE CRUST(makes 2 9 inche pie crusts):

2 1/2 C all purpose flour

1 ts salt

3.5 oz butter

3.5 oz shortening

12 tbs ice water

Stir flour & salt in bowl. cut lard into 1/2 inch cubs; add to flour and with fingertips mix until pea sized fat remains in the flour.

Gradually add water, tossing flour/fat mixture with fingertills uill dough can be drawn into a ball.

Divide in half, flatten into a disk, wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

TO PREBAKE SHELL FOR CREAM PIES: roll out and place 1 disk into a pie dish, then insert another pie dish ontop of the dough. Put it upside down and bake 400 F. Then remove top pan, dock the bottom of the pie crust and bake until golden brown right side up.

BUTTERSCOTCH CREAM PIE

3/4 C brown sugar

3 tbs flour

1 tbs cornstarch

1/4 ts salt

1 1/2 C milk

3 egg yolks, lightly beaten

2 Tbs butter

1 tsp vanilla

Combine sugar, flour, cornstarch & salt in top of broiler. Mix with wooden spoon. Blend in milk gradually, then add egg yolks. Add butter

Place over boiling water with pan touching water. Stir constantly until thick & smooth (7 minutes). Scrape sides of pans as necessary.

Take off heat, add vanilla and stir till smooth. Pour hot filling into prebaked pie shell.

Here is a chocolate cream pie. Here you would melt 1.5 squares of chocolate into the milk in the double broiler and allow to cool. Instead of 3/4 C brown sugar, use granulated sugar.

My group made the Mrs Smith pie above, from canned apples - ew.

"MRS SMITHS APPLE PIE"

1 No. 10 Can sliced applies

2 lbs water ( we used the juice from the can and apple cider to equal 2 lbs)

1 lb sugar

1/4 oz salt

1/4 oz cinnamon

1/8 oz nutmeg

4 oz cornstarch

We drained the apples and kept the liquid.

Add apple cider to liquid to equal 1 qt.

Use 3 C of that liquid, mix with sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and bring to a boil in a pan.

In another bowl mix together cornstarch & 1 C of the liquid.

Slowly add the cornstarch mix to spice mixture constantly stirring.

Once thickened, pull off the heat and add the apples into the thickened liquid. Allow to cool before pouring into unbaked pie shell. Fill just to level and wet the sides of the bottom crust with water then put top crust over filling and flute the edges of the crust. Brush with milk and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake 400 degrees F for 20 minutes, then 350 degrees F for another 20 minutes.

This is the homestlye apple pie which I personally think looks a whole lot better and I'm sure it tastes much better than the Mrs Smiths pie.

"HOMESTYLE APPLE PIE"(2 PIE)

3 lbs 14 oz apples
4 Tbs bread flour
1 1/2 C sugar
2 ts cinnamon
milk to brush top crust
2 packets turbinado sugar

This is simple, just mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon together and pour apples into flour mixture and coat apples. Then top apples high in the bottom unbaked pie crust. Spritz edges of bottom crust with water, and top with top pie crust. Cut top pie crust level to table to rid of excess pie crust that are overhanging. Then tuck the top crust edges underneath the bottom crust and flute edges. Brush with milk, top with turbinado sugar and make 3 vertical slits down the middle. Bake 400 degrees F for 20 minutes and 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. It will be done if the apples are soft when you stab your knife into it.

This is the streusel version of the apple pie. It looks pretty enough. We had extra streusel from last weeks class with the sour cream streusel muffins recipe.

Now we have 2 versions of the banana cream pie. The one above has the banana slices incorporated into the cream mixture it self while the one below has it on the top. I'm not really sure how they made this actually. I should probably figure that one out. lol.

There was a group that made a keylime pie but they used graham cracker crumbs that had been mixed with rancid cottonseed oil and they didn't notice it until everyone took a bite of it. Yuck! So glad I didn't eat it.