Kitchen Toys Make Cooking Fun!®: pie

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Apple Pie for Easter & Beyond! Sure! Tale of Two Apple Peelers.

Easter is just around the corner. How about serving a delicious apple pie to your Easter guests?

This is one of my favorite apple pie recipes that I can always count on to taste delicious.

I've used the Apple Pie Recipe that can be found on the side of the Crisco can. Even though I don't make my crusts all of the time, I still like their pie filling recipe listed below:

Double Crust Classic Crisco Pie Crust

6 medium Granny Smith apples

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

1 large egg white, lightly beaten

PREPARE recipe for double crust pie. Roll out dough for bottom crust. Place in 9-inch pie plate. Press to fit without stretching dough. Trim even with pie plate. Do not bake.

HEAT oven to 400ºF.

PEEL, core and slice apples. Toss with sugar, flour and cinnamon. Pour into unbaked pie crust; dot with butter. Cover with top crust; seal and flute edge. Brush with egg white. Cut slits for steam to escape.

ROLL additional crust to 1/8-inch thickness. With small 1/2-inch star cookie cutter, cut 20 to 25 stars. Place 1 star on rim of top crust; brush with egg white. Repeat until rim is covered.

COMBINE cinnamon and sugar; sprinkle over crust. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until pie is golden brown and apples are tender.

If you would like to try making your own crusts, here is the link to the entire recipe:
http://www.crisco.com/Recipes/Details.aspx?recipeID=450

I tested two brands of apple peelers and found that only one was up to the task.

Progressive Apple Peeler

Even after making adjustments, the Progresso peeler
didn't work consistently.

It cut the slices, but didn't peel the apple.

This one is made by Green Mountain in Vermont,
but Amazon has the comparable version
made by Victorio shown below in red.

The top apple was done on the
Progressive peeler. The other apple was
done with the Green Mountain peeler.
Amazon carries a comparable Victorio model.

Pillsbury premade pie crust. I sprinkled a generous
amount of Cinnamon Maple sugar on to the crust and
pressed it into the pie crust.

I mixed the sliced apples with all the seasonings in a big bowl ,
put them into the raw pie crust, topped the apples
with 1/4 cup of butter cut in "pats".

Cover apples with the other premade pie crust.
Brush with scrambled egg & water (egg wash).
Sprinkle Cinnamon Maple sugar on top.
Cut an "X" on the top of the crust to let out steam.

The finished pie came was devoured before I
could get a picture of it. Next time I make an apple pie, I'll be
sure to take a picture and post it here!

Friday, January 13, 2012

My Oh My, It's Blueberry (Mini) Pie!

It's Friday the 13th! Turns out this is a good day for me....I have yummy mini blueberry pies on my menu.

Along with cake pops, cute, little, mini pies are moving right along on the food trend train. So when I saw this Chicago Metallic "Cut Pie Set" on Amazon, I knew I wanted to give it a try.
It is one of the new gadgets I got for myself for Christmas. Along with the pie set, I also ordered a cookbook Cutie Pies, by Dani Cone. (See Amazon links below.) I found the Mini Pies, book (publisher; Love Food) at T.J.Maxx.
The recipe for the pies below did not come from either of those cookbooks. I took the shortcut route to use some of my pantry items. I had a ready made box of pie crusts & a can of Comstock blueberry filling. Although it was a shortcut, the end result was delicious.
After experimenting with cutting the pie crusts, I found my second attempt on the second pie crust worked out better, there was much less piecing together of pie dough to make the circle whole (see photos).

The pie pan works beautifully, it produces perfect little pies. I can see me making sweet & savory pies in this fun little gadget.

Mini Blueberry Pies

Makes four mini pies.

Preheat oven 425 degrees

Ingredients

1 can Comstock filling (your choice)
1 box of Pillsbury Pie Crusts (2 in a box)
Nutrition Facts listed below
Roll out the dough as directed. Use the cutter provided with the pie set to cut out four tops and four bottoms.
Spray pie pans with vegetable spray, fit the bottom crusts; add filling leaving 1/2 inch at the top, gently set the pie crust tops on the filling. Press edges together. Spray the top crust with vegetable spray, or use an egg wash.
Bake for approximately 15 minutes.
Watch your pies, once the top crust gets brown, remove from oven. Cool, 10 min.
Pop the pies up from the bottom, remove the removable bottom, enjoy!