Tag Archives: pear

Pear and Almond Cream Pie with Chocolate Crust

So I found this recipe online, originally calling for canned pears, but decided to use fresh ones instead. It was also originally meant to make a tart, rather than the double crust pie you see in the photos, but the crust recipe (7 egg yolks!) made enough for two crusts, even though there was barely enough almond cream for one pie, so after I made the mistake of trying to pour the almond cream over the pears instead of settling the pears into a layer of almond cream, I put the top crust on it in an attempt to protect the texture somehow. So you can’t see the artful arrangement of the pears, but it still looks okay. The crust was weird. The recipe I had said it required kneading prior to rolling out, unlike normal pastry, and it was correct. When I pulled the pastry out of the fridge, it was super crumbly and chalky looking and hard, but after a few seconds of kneading, the dough came together into what I would expect chocolate pastry to look like. I hope it tasted okay too, but sadly this pie was not destined for eating. One day I’ll give it another go.

 

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Sweet and Savory: The Cheddar-Crusted Apple-Pear Pie

A sweet fruit pie with cheese? Classic with a twist! A little bit unconventional for my first foray into the pie-making game, but I figured, go big or go home, right? Plus, my favorite pie was apple, my partner’s was pear…it just seemed like the right call :).

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[The Recipes along with some Tools of the Trade]

First, we began with a basic, flaky double-crust pastry for 9″ pies, BUT we included half a cup of shredded cheddar in there. BAM! The cheese was baked INTO the pie! 20140108_142653

[Pastry for Crust with Cheese before Rolling]

While that was chilling out, we worked on the filling. Apples and pears (oh my!) that were peeled and cut into medium-small chunks, mixed with the dry ingredients and lemon juice, then left out to juice.

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[The Fruit with Sugar]

Finally, we created the bottom crust, poured the filling in, folded in the top crust, and cut into it a tear drop design with a hole in the center. Classic!

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[Raw Pie with Cling Wrap]

We then stored the pie overnight, baked it the next day, and served it with few slices of fresh-cut Sharp White Cheddar ontop. Mmm-mmm!

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[The Finished Product]

Reflections: The crust became very brittle and hard to work with at a point, fracturing very often. This may have been attributed to the fact that we did not consider the extra dry mass of the cheese in the recipe, calling for more liquid than normal. Oh well, a lesson for next time. Other than that, I would say everything else worked out splendidly – the browning was good, proper bubbling was achieved, the two crusts formed well, our design stayed intact, and, most importantly, it tasted FANTASTIC!

I look forward to trying this recipe again, perhaps with a more spiced kick during the filling preparation process so that the natural sweetness of the fruits as well as the savory flavor of the cheese can be better complimented.

Bake on, readers!

 

Week 1: Sweet pies — complete!

6 sweet pies for sampling on Thursday noon.

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That would be, from bottom to top: Apple-Pear in Cheddar Crust Pastry (served with melted sharp cheddar on top); Mixed Berry; Very Cranberry Pear; Cider-Infused Apple; Sour Cream Blackberry; and Cranberry Apple Crumb-top pie.

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We seriously questioned whether we would be able to make it through sampling 6 pies—and that was even with half-size slices (1/16 of the whole pie, rather than 1/8). We need to strategize about this for upcoming weeks, when we’ll have 10 pies to sample (or more if people make more than one!)

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Next week: savory pies!

Very Cranberry-Pear Pie

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Considering that everyone says the difficult part of baking is that you have to be so precise, recipes use very imprecise wording. How much larger is a “large… crumb” than a “medium-fine crumb?” Because this was for my topping, it was not as problematic figuring out the “large” crumb, but I did have a difficult time figuring out when to stop pulsing my ingredients. The same was true for cutting up the cranberries. It said only to pulse five or six times until they were cut up well, but five or six times mostly just chopped them in half. Haven’t never baked with cranberries before, I wasn’t sure how small they should be in the pie filling.

Making the actual pastry wasn’t as hard as I expected. However, I think it’ll definitely be several more times before I can recognize the proper consistency on my own.

I was very excited to see it bubbling nicely at the end! (I can’t believe it cooked for 65 whole minutes.) I wasn’t sure how to tell if it was done, but I guess it’s just a lot easier when filling is sticking out a little than when it is completely covered with another pastry. In the notes, it said something about how cranberries can be bitter but balanced with the right amount of sugar. I have never had cranberry or pear pie, so I’m excited to taste it. I also discovered that I don’t like the smell of cardamon very much…

Pear mincemeat pie, in progress…

Never made a mincemeat pie before. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had mincemeat pie in probably 30 years or more, not since some childhood Christmas vaguely remembered. But as soon as I smelled the mince as it began stewing, a flood of childhood memories came back and I knew that this was precisely what Christmas was supposed to smell like!

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That’s homemade mince there: pears, dried Turkish apricots, dried currants, golden raisins, sliced almonds, orange and lemon peel, brown sugar, spices (nutmeg cloves ginger cinnamon) and brandy. No suet in this one, will try that another time.

20131225-mincemeat-pie-2…and a little autumnal decoration (yes fine it’s winter, I know. Stupid rain melted all the snow right before Christmas anyway…)

Sometimes, it’s just a 4-pie day