After a productive first day of pastry-making with my partner, Moiz, it took me a while to decide which pie to make. When I looked back at my experience with pies, I realized that I am more of a crust person and tend to neglect the pie fillings. Regardless, I narrowed it down to a peach vanilla cardamom pie and a German chocolate pecan pie. It wasn’t until I took a trip to the grocery store that I finally decided to go with the latter (mainly because peaches aren’t in season).

I chose this recipe, but I also stumbled upon this highly-rated one so I decided to do a mash up!I followed the Gimme Some Oven’s instructions on the filling:

And followed Melanie Makes’s instructions regarding the German chocolate and coconut. I used the all-butter pie pastry that I made with Moiz.

As is the case with everything I make, I wanted to make it look appealing. I realized that pastry dough has a similar consistency to gum paste and fondant, both of which I occasionally use when I decorate cakes. I used my gum paste equipment to decorate my pie:

I didn’t have enough time to finish decorating my pie at the First Congo kitchen, so I had to pack everything up and I relocated to the Zilkha Center’s kitchen. Lugging everything around was a serious workout, but I was having a wonderful time decorating my baby!

Finally, I put it in the oven! Unfortunately, I got distracted while it was baking and it…browned quite a bit. Regardless, I was satisfied with the final appearance and taste!

Tagged: all-butter pastry, artwork, flowers, food coloring, german chocolate, lattice-top, Pecan