Pecan Pie Recipe

Pecan Pie, from Why Not Pie
Pecan Pie, Photo by Doug & Diane Russell

There are as many different Pecan Pie recipes as there are ways to say “pecan.” That is to say, there are a lot of variations on the classic Pecan Pie.

A couple years back, I made several kinds of comparison pies– with all white sugar, all brown sugar, all corn syrup, or various mixtures — and had taste-testers let me know what they thought. I’d like to say that’s how I developed a really great pecan pie recipe, but maybe it was just good luck.

This recipe calls for a variety of sweeteners to add depth to the filling, so you’ll find white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup and a touch of molasses. Fill your crust to the top, but don’t overfill. You may find yourself with a little excess filling, depending on the depth of your pan, but save it for another pie.

Pecan Pie

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon molasses
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 whole eggs, beaten
1.25 cups of chopped pecans
1 unbaked Pie Crust

Method:
1. Prepare pie crust. Line pan and crimp edges.
2. Mix sugar, brown sugar, molasses, salt, corn syrup, vanilla, butter, and eggs together in a large bowl.
3. Spread chopped pecans evenly in the bottom of the pie shell.
4. Pour the syrup mixture over the pecans.
5. Lightly spray foil with non-stick cook spray, and then cover the pie, lightly folding foil over crust and filling. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Remove foil, and bake for about 20 more minutes, checking frequently so crust or pecans does not burn.
6. Pie is finished when center is firm and not too soft. Center should spring back when touched. If pie does not set up, cover with foil and bake for 10 minutes longer.
7. Allow pie to cool before slicing into thin pieces.

Cranberry Pie Recipe

Cranberry Pie, Photo by Diane & Doug Russell
Cranberry Pie, Photo by Diane & Doug Russell

Cranberry Pie seems invented specifically for the holidays! Cranberry Pie a perfect pie for the season when fresh cranberries abound at the markets and groceries.

Cranberry Pie captures the fresh bright flavor of cranberries. This pie calls for a bit more sugar than I usually put in a 9-inch pie, but in this case, it is completely necessary. The sweetness helps tame and balance the zingy but wonderful cranberry taste.

Fresh cranberries aren’t available year-round, and even frozen cranberries can be hard to come by. If you fall for this pie or love cooking with cranberries, you should buy extra bags of cranberries when you see them fresh in the grocery store. Pop a few bags in the freezer for future use. Cranberries don’t need to be washed before freezing; just rinse them before use and add them to your recipes.

Cranberry Pie

Ingredients:
4 cups cranberries
1 and 1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon orange juice
1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
pince of salt
1 tablespoon butter
Double crust pie pastry

Method:
1. Briefly pulse 3 cups of cranberries in food processor or chop them coarsely.
2. Add chopped cranberries, whole cranberries, sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg, orange juice, and salt into a large bowl and mix well.
3. Line pie pan with pastry, and then add the cranberry mixture.
4. Dot with butter, and then cover with top crust.
5. Trim extra dough and crimp edges.
6. Bake at 375 F for about 40-45 minutes.

How to Turn a Pumpkin into a Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Are you tiring of candy season and longing instead for the spiced and subtly sweet flavor of that Thanksgiving dessert of choice? If you love pumpkin pie as much as my friend Chris, you might be interested in joining her grassroots campaign to make pumpkin pie the official dessert of Halloween. It makes good sense too because pumpkins and Halloween do go together– as long as we keep in mind the difference between jack-o’-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins.

For carving pumpkins, most people want large pumpkins. Smaller, sweeter “pie” pumpkins, however, are best for baking and cooking. When shopping for a pie pumpkin, look for one in the 3 to 8 pound range. In previous seasons, we’ve grown Small Sugar Pumpkins, an heirloom variety from Seeds of Change. We started them from seeds outdoors directly in the soil, and once again, we were delighted watching the substantial vines and leaves grow and counting the many pumpkins they produced. Other popular pie pumpkin varieties include Baby Bear, Baby Pam, and Sugar Treat.

Growing pumpkins is fun and easy. The plants make for an endlessly amusing topic for garden walks. For a couple of years, we’ve grown pumpkins along a fence, which has turned out better than we could have imagined. Pumpkin vines are strong and easily grip onto the support of the fence with just a little encouragement. That way, the pumpkins are kept off the ground so they develop nice and round with no soil contact spots. For most of the growing season, our pumpkins were safe from the neighborhood squirrels, who had plenty of other stuff to eat. Come mid-October, however, these ravenous squirrels will eat anything so as soon as we noticed nibbling, we picked the remainder of our pumpkins — both fully orange and those still somewhat mottled orange and dark green — and brought them inside. Happily, the pumpkins stored inside finished turning and are all now completely orange.

Making a pie pumpkin into a pie is a multi-step process, but it’s not a particularly hard one. The result is a pumpkin pie that is superior, I will assert, to what can be purchased in a store or even made from canned pumpkin.

Roasting the pumpkin
The first step is roasting the pumpkin. Wash the outside well and scrub off any dirt. Slice the pumpkin in half with a large, sharp knife.

At this stage, I take the time to poke out all of the seeds because we enjoy roasting them too. The seeds can be quite easily prodded loose from the pulp and then soaked or rinsed clean. Recipes for roasting pumpkin seeds can be found here and here.

Then scoop out all of the stringy bits of pumpkin insides. I like using an ice cream scoop or kitchen scoop to do this task. A sharp edge makes the clean-out process easier.

Place the pumpkin cut-side down in a shallow roasting pan or glass dish and add enough water to have ½ inch in the pan. Bake in a 350 degree F oven for about an hour. This is the technique I use for roasting most squash. It requires very little effort and attention. Others advocate microwaving or using a crock-pot, but I like oven-baking best.

When the baking is finished, allow the pumpkin to cool to near room temperature for easy handling. Then scrap out as much of the soft pumpkin as you can. To get a smooth texture, you can mash the pumpkin, or use a hand-blender, or pulse in a food processor. I like putting the pumpkin through the food mill.

Finally, the pie

Here’s my favorite pumpkin pie recipe. It calls for 3 cups of homemade pumpkin puree and makes two 8 inch pumpkin pies or one larger pie. If you have more filling than fits in the pie(s), you can bake it separately in greased or cooking-sprayed ramekins or other glass dishes. Then you can sample your delicious homemade pie filling straight out of the oven while leaving the pumpkin pie intact for showing off.

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Ready to fill unbaked pie crust
3 cups of homemade pumpkin puree, cooked and mashed
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon freshly ground allspice
¼ teaspoon freshly ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon salt
3 eggs
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
1-12 ounce can of evaporated mlik

Combine ingredients and mix well using a whisk or hand blender. Filling may seem runny, but that’s fine. Pour carefully into a prepared pie shell.

Bake in 400 degree F oven for 50-60 minutes. Pie is done when a knife inserted into the custard comes out clean.

Some people claim that you can make a fine pumpkin pie out of any pumpkin. If I’m going to the effort of making a homemade pumpkin pie from scratch however, I will use a pie pumpkin because I know that works great. I’ve heard that other squashes like acorn or butternut make perfectly good “pumpkin” pies. I’m not a fan of secret substitute, however, since the unfortunate childhood incident wherein my dear grandmother tried to pass off liver as “just another cut of beef roast.”

If you haven’t grown your own pie pumpkins this year, you can find them at many groceries and at farmers’ markets. You may consider growing a vine or two next year to make your own Halloween or Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.

My article originally appeared on the 20minutegarden.com and annarbor.com on November 1, 2011.

Weekend Plans for Pie

A slice of French Apple Pie-- Photo by Diane and Doug Russell
A slice of French Apple Pie– Photo by Diane and Doug Russell

Friday is a happy day when I hand over pies to waiting customers or leave pies on porches to greet their soon-to-be delightfully surprised recipients. I don’t always get the exact report of what my pies are up to, but I know a few facts nonetheless.

This weekend, among others activities, my pies will be:

* posing for photographs, for future newsletters and the book project;

* thanking someone for a lovely weekend past;

* served as dessert on family movie night;

* celebrating with a newlywed couple;

* as a mini-pie, being a “just right” sized dessert for two.

A weekend is a great time to share a pie with a friend or loved one!

How to Put Words on Pies

Mini Alphabet Pastry Cutters

I bought these very cute tiny alphabet pastry cutters from the William and Sonoma store at least a year ago.

Small letters with hand, for scale

I’ve been waiting for an occasion to use them, and tonight I had the chance.

Cutting out letters from pastry

I was asked to make a Happy 3rd Birthday pie for a group that meets tomorrow night to celebrate their third year of existence.

Pie before cooking with egg wash

I was hoping that the pie would behave in the oven and that the filling would not bubble over and ruin my letters.

Happy 3rd Birthday Pie

I think the pie came out even better than I hoped it might!

Girl Scout Cookie Bake-off Benefit

GSHOM

I’m very excited to have been invited to participate as a Guest Chef in this year’s Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Girl Scout Cookie Bake-off Benefit. The event takes place on Thursday, September 19, 2013 at the Ann Arbor Marriott Ypsilanti at Eagle Crest, Garden Marquee Tent, 1275 S. Huron St., Ypsilanti, Michigan 48197. The Girl Scout Cookie Bake-Off raises funds to support participation in Girl Scouts for low-income and at-risk girls in our area.

I’ll be competing in the challenge to make the best dessert using Girl Scout cookies as an ingredient. I have a bunch of ideas that I’m trying out– and everyone seems to have a suggestion or two. What’s your favorite cookie or best idea? Feel free to share it here or on the Why Not Pie facebook page.

If you are interested in attending the event, I’d love to see you there. Visit the Girl Scout website to learn more about the benefit and how to get tickets.

Variations on Blueberry Pie

Lots of Blueberries

It seems I can’t stop baking blueberry pies! This year’s blueberry harvest has been pretty fantastic and very tasty indeed.

Pie offerings this summer have included Fresh Blueberry Brown Sugar Pie, Fresh Blueberry Peach Pie, Fresh Blueberry Pie, Fresh Blueberry Pie with Lemon Pastry Crust, and Fresh Blueberry Rhubarb Pie.

That’s a lot of blueberries!– but I do have at least one more blueberry pie recipe up my sleeve for this summer. Watch for tomorrow’s announcement to get in on the blueberry craze!

A little pie for a little friend

This week, I made a special little pie for a special little friend.

Emma with her little Blueberry Pie

Even though I’ve been making mini pies for a couple of years, this one was a particularly great success– maybe because of that smile.

Since my little friend likes blueberries, I made her a Fresh Blueberry Pie– and she helped.

We started with a small pre-baked crust. We sorted and washed about 1/2 cup of blueberries.

Then came the hot part, and my little friend stood back for this. I made up a quick blueberry glaze with 1/3 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Mix those well in a pan. Then add a 3 tablespoons of water and 1/3 cup mashed blueberries. Cook over medium heat until boiling, and then boil for 1 minute. You’ll end up with a nice blueberry glaze, and this small amount will cool very quickly. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, and continue to stir the glaze. When it’s cool to the touch, spread the glaze over the blueberries in the pie crust. (“Extra” glaze can be eaten with a spoon!) Top the pie with a piece of wax paper and chill.

When cool, remove from the refrigerator and pose with your pie. Then enjoy!