Sally’s Baking Addiction: November, 2019 Challenge: Pecan Praline Pumpkin Pie 🥧

Well, it finally happened! It is December 6th and I am just now posting about a baking challenge that happened last month 😳 I am not sure why I let this go so long! I have not been motivated to post lately. I know many of us bloggers go through this from time to time, I guess it’s my turn now.

November is host to the most food centric holiday in the US, of course I am referring to Thanksgiving 🦃 🥧👩🏻‍🍳 and Sally did not disappoint with her challenge this year. Her Pecan Praline Pumpkin Pie combines two Thanksgiving favs, pecan and pumpkin pie.

I admit, I am not a big pie fan to begin with, but I do want to be able to bake pies for the ones I love. What is great about this combination is that there is the crunch of the praline pecan topping, which is offset by the smooth creamy pumpkin component. While I still do not like each pie separately, I really did enjoy the hybrid results 😋

I was really pressed for time this year, and did most of my baking concurrently, which is a long way of saying that I didn’t take a lot of production pictures! In fact, the only real pictures I have were taken by my friend Joan. Joan has Celiac’s and asked me to make a couple traditional pie crusts, so she could take regular pies to her Thanksgiving dinner. She snapped a couple shots of me rolling out dough.

This is Sally’s favorite pie crust, and I recommend it! I did not know Joan was taking pics!!

The pumpkin custard was added and baked for about 30 minutes at 375F. Then the pecan praline topping was added and baked for the final 15 minutes.

This was one of two pies I made for our dinner, the other was an apple pie with cinnamon roll crust.

I decided to garnish with maple whipped cream and Dulce de Leche Macarons.

I found this recipe on Pinterest

This was my first time baking Macarons, I will get a bigger tip next time 😉

 

 

And off to my brother in laws for dinner!

 

 

My oldest nephew, Nicholas, photo bombing me!

We ate, drank and had a great time! I hope all my American friends enjoyed their time with family and friends as well ❤️

I will try to do a better job of posting in the future🤞

 

Sally’s Baking Addiction: July, 2018 Challenge: Hand Pies 🍏🍒🥧

Technically, the challenge was for apple hand pies. But, I was really impressed by the gorgeous cherries in the store that day, so I decided to make both varieties 😊

I mentioned before, in the cherry pie challenge from last year, that I am not much of a pie baker. It’s not really so much that I am intimidated by making pie crust, I am just more of a crumble fan. But that cherry pie last year was so good, thanks to Sally’s recipe and, this is the point of a challenge is it not? To try new things🥧!

I started out by making a double batch of her homemade pie crust. This is a really simple recipe that includes both shortening and butter. I have also made her all butter crust in the past, and that is delicious too. I opted for this version due to the hot weather we are having in Seattle. The all butter recipe would have been more temperamental than I would have liked that day!

Like most pie crust recipes, you start by cutting in the cold fat until it is the size of peas. My “peas” are always huge! More like lima beans. Then cold water is drizzled in until the mix starts to clump.

When the mix is ready (not too dry or wet) it is formed into a disk, wrapped with plastic and chilled. I like to do this the night before.

The next day I went climbing outside, then came home and made the fillings. First the apple: Pretty much a classic apple pie filling. A couple apples, sugar, butter and spices all cooked down and cooled.

Then the cherry filling. Sally has many to choose from and I went with her simple cherry pastry pie filling. The only change I made was to use half bing and half rainier cherries. I like the balance of sweet and tart that these two varieties contribute to the pie.

Cherries were combined with sugar and lemon. This cooked down and was thickened with a cornstarch and water mixture.

Once the fillings were completely cooled, it was time to roll out the chilled pie dough. I used a 3.5 inch cutter and some smaller shapes to make some decorative cut outs.

I had to be careful to chill in between each step to keep the dough cold. This took some time! Finally, it was time to fill the hand pies.🍏

The tops went on, and pressed to seal to the bottom pastry. The top was brushed with egg wash and the vents were cut. Finally the decorative cut outs applied, and sprinkled with coarse sugar.

Then the cherry hand pies were assembled.🍒

I tried to make the decorations different to distinguish the apple from the cherry.

All the hand pies went into a 375F oven for about 30 minutes. While they were baking I prepared Sally’s Homemade Salted Carmel Sauce for the apple pies, and a simple Vanilla glaze for the cherry ones.

By the way, that caramel sauce is amazing on ice cream 🍨!

The verdict: Both the apple and cherry hand pies were quite tasty!😋 My husband and I were partial to the cherry one, just a bit more! In fact, I may have to make a full cherry pie when we get back from traveling later this month 🍒😊🥧

Give this a try! the recipe is easy to scale up or down, and many of the components are freezable and easy to make ahead. Enjoy!!

Sally’s Baking Addiction November Challenge, Decorative Pie Crust

This month Sally challenged us to make pretty pies. This is not my forte! This is only the second pie I have ever made, and for it to be pretty? Well, I did give it my best shot.

Sally’s challenge was to bake any pie we chose and she provided many beautiful designs to inspire us to be creative with the lattice topper.

My first pie was also a Sally challenge, from back in July, and we really liked the cherry pie recipe from her website, but cherries are no longer in season. So I chose her cranberry almond apple pie to bake for our family Thanksgiving dinner.

The first order of business was to make the crust and allow it, at least two hours, to firm up in the refrigerator. Sally’s pie crust recipe is easy to follow and does produce tender, flaky layers.

After a couple hours I rolled out the bottom dough and placed it into a 9 inch baking dish.

The almond portion of the pie is from almond paste. Sally recommends Odense and it is rolled out and fitted into the bottom of the pie.

This went back into the refrigerator while I mixed up the filling.

Now came the tricky part for me-how to decorate the top of the pie? I decided that I wanted to make a braided edge so I cut strips 1/4 inch thick and made three stranded braids. Not that easy it turns out, when there are small bits of butter running throughout the dough! But I eventually got it done and laid them over the circumference of the dish.

With the extra dough, I cut wider strips, and used cookie cutters to stamp out turkey and heart shapes.

The pie went into the oven until it was golden brown and the filling was bubbling.

 

This was probably my least successful challenge to date. It was tasty, although I feel it should have baked longer, and we did enjoy it. However, I need more practice with pie dough!

What a great reason to keep practicing 🙂 Can’t wait to see what Sally has in store for us in December!

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Black & White & Color Photo Challenge

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and, like most bakers, I have been in the kitchen for the last couple days. I finished this apple, almond and cranberry pie late tonight. Here it is right before going into the oven. Which looks more appetizing?

 

The black and white version of the pie

or

The color version

I wish you all the best of holidays and a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

Grab your camera or phone and join Linda from Everyone Else has the best titles and Take the “Black and White and Color” photo challenge!

Sally’s Baking Addiction, July Challenge: Cherry Pie, from scratch

I have never made a cherry pie before, in fact, I have made very few pies in total. When I was in culinary school we made hundreds around the holidays. So, apple and pumpkin were the extent of my pie repertoire. I love fruit desserts and make many crisps, tarts and galettes, just not pies. The reason is that my family just doesn’t like pie. I think it has to do with the crust component which usually are soggy or too buttery for our liking. So when Sally’s Baking Addiction had a cherry pie as the July challenge I was not sure I would make one. Not because I was worried about the difficulty of making one but I did not have anyone to eat it! But I really wanted to take the challenge seriously and stretch myself as a baker so I forged ahead, and am so glad I did.

As usual, Sally provided wonderful directions as well as tasty recipes for both the crust and the filling. I began by making her pie crust recipe which is much like others I have seen and used as she mixes shortening and butter for the fats and stresses the importance of keeping all the components very cold for a flaky crust.

The flour and salt are combined, then the cold butter and shortening are cut in with a pastry cutter until the fats are the size of small marbles or peas.

 

The cold water is added, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together into a ball.

The dough is separated into two portions, discs are formed and wrapped in plastic. The dough is placed in the refrigerator for, at least, two hours.

While the dough rested the filling was prepared. No cans of pre made cherry pie filling allowed. I used my cherry pitter to remove the pits from 12 oz. of Bing and 12 oz. of Rainier Cherries.

This yielded approximately 4 1/2 cups of halved, pitted cherries. I followed Sally’s recipe with the exception of using vanilla sugar instead of regular, granulated and I added the zest of the lemon used for juicing, just couldn’t help myself! The addition of the almond extract was really delicious! The cherries, flavorings, corn starch and sugar rested in the refrigerator while the oven preheated and I rolled out the pie dough.

I made sure to roll the bottom crust thin since we don’t really like a thick crust and then filled the shell with the cherry mixture. Sally’s directions specified that the extra liquid from the cherries should not be added to the pie to prevent a soggy crust, but don’t throw the liquid away! It is delicious as a topping for ice cream or as a simple syrup for drinks!

The second disk was rolled out and cut into strips, woven to make a lattice crust

The second disc of dough was rolled out and cut into strips which were woven together to form the lattice crust. The pie went into a 400°F for 20 minutes, then the temperature was reduced to 375°F and baked for an additional 30 minutes.

It came out smelling wonderful and looked pretty good too.

 

Sally recommended waiting 3 hours before cutting, to let the pie set up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My husband and I were pleasantly surprised at how much we liked it! The fruit to crust ratio was perfect for us! I think I will try other fruit pies in the future and will be sure to keep Sally’s crust recipe on hand for next time! Another great result from Sally’s Baking Addiction!

Oh, and it was yummy with ice cream!