Pie #6: Louisiana Brown Butter Pecan Pie

Man, just the sound of this pie sounds good.

Let me preface this blog by saying that while I was making this particular pie, I was also making lunch for me and a separate lunch for the boys. I had many things going on all at once and I knew that it would be crazy; but, I know now not to attempt that again. Things seemed really rushed, but no worries, the pie turned out great.

This time I used the food processor for making the pie crust, to save time.  In the mist of the craziness I skipped a step when adding ingredients to the food processor. Per the book “Pie” by Ken Haedrich, you are supposed to put in the flour, sugar and salt and then mix and then fluff. Then add the butter and then fluff again.  Well… I missed that last part. I put the shortening in first then the butter. I am not sure it made a difference; but, I did notice there were clumps of butter when getting the dough ready to set. Note to self: Follow directions exactly and don’t skip steps.

This was yet another prebake pie crust but since I just did one a few days ago it was fresh on my mind and I knew what needed to be done. Except one step… there is one last step that is very important that I did not follow to a “T”.  When you take the prebaked pie crust out of the oven after cooking it for 20 minutes, you are supposed to cover just the holes with egg whites. Well, I was in a hurry so I covered the entire crust with egg whites. You might wonder what the big deal is but you will find out later.

Now, the biggest part of this pie was browning the butter. You need a shiny pan to do this, so, I had to order a shiny pan first. The “special” shiny pan is supposed to make it easier to tell the color of the butter as it browns, it's harder to tell how it's doing in a dark pan. Browning the butter was an important step, and if you mess that up it will mess up the whole pie. I don’t know about you, but I have never browned butter before. They are right that once the browning starts you have to work FAST. I am happy to report that my first attempt to brown butter was a success.  After browning the butter I set it aside to let it cool. I then added all the ingredients to it and then ran into a hiccup. It called for 1/8 teaspoon of vanilla extract. I did not know they made that little of a measuring spoon. So, thanks to the advice of my Mom, I just filled the 1/4 teaspoon halfway and there you have it, 1/8 teaspoon. Who knew you would get a math lesson from me.  I finished making the filling, and boy did it smell good!

The pie took a little longer to cook than it said it would, maybe 10 minutes more.  Per the book, the filling should crack at the sides and puff a little at the top. Looks like it turned out just right.

After letting it set for over two hours, Joshua cut the pie and it was hard to cut. Of course, me being the “crust master” that I am [sarcastic], I just knew he was cutting it wrong. If you recall, earlier in this blog I talk about adding the egg whites to the entire crust, well yeah, the egg whites made the crust a “little” tough to cut. Lesson learned with that little oops.

Hello Results: Over all, it turned out really great. It tasted a little “sticky” because of the egg whites on the crust. So, don’t be in a hurry when making the crust.  Try not to make a lunch for yourself and two hungry toddlers at the same time. Buy a 1/8 teaspoon measuring spoon.  294 to go!

Pie #5: Classic Chess Pie

For the Super Bowl I decided to make a pie, Classic Chess Pie. So, what is a chess pie?

According to Google it’s: a pie filled with a rich mixture of eggs, butter, and sugar, often with additional flavorings. In this case, lemon is the extra flavor.

The start of the crust went easy. I decided to forego the food processor this time and make the crust all by hand. The dough turned out great, although I had to roll it out twice. It turned out to be just the right amount of crust and I only had a little piece left over. Usually, I have a lot of scraps left.

Now prebaking the pie crust was another story. There are several steps to follow to prebake a pie.  First, I had to put the pie in the freezer for 15 minutes. Then after that I had to make a foil mold of the pie and but beans in the foil. The beans act as a weight to weigh down the crust so it does not puff up. It called for beans to fill the pie plate completely, but I did not have enough beans, so I just made do with what I had.

After 15 minutes I had to take the beans and foil off and then poke holes in the bottom of the crust and cook for another 20 minutes. During this time I missed a key part. You were supposed to check on the pie during this 20 minutes and I did not. So I pulled the pie out of the oven and it was a little puffy. To fix this, it suggests taking the back of a spoon and push down the crust without breaking it. I did it and that seemed to help. I then had to break an egg to get the egg white and thankful I have an egg white separator, and then put the egg whites over ONLY the holes you made and then bake that for another 2 minutes.

I will say right now I’m not the biggest fan of prebaking crust. That is one thing I will have to master. 

Finally, I was done with crust and I could work on the filling. By this time I had been working on this pie for a while and was honestly ready to be done. That being said, I looked at the ingredients and noticed that the recipe called for ROOM TEMPATURE butter. Well yeah, my butter was in the fridge. So what now? Well, I got the amount of butter it called for and put it in a pan and cooked the butter a little bit. I just helped the butter reach “room temperature” faster. Right? I will say I did remember to have the eggs at room temperature, so, I did have that going for me. I had to use the mixer with this pie. This was the first time for me to use a mixer on this pie journey.  It was interesting. I could not figure out what speeds I needed and thankfully my hubby was there to come to my rescue and help me figure out what speed my mixer needed to be at. 

As I was putting the ingredients into the mixer, Joshua, my husband, noticed that there was a lot of lemon zest. So he asked me, “How much of the lemon did you zest?” I replied quickly, “Till I saw the lemon part.” EKK… I should not have done that! Way to much lemon zest. Apparently I am supposed to zest only the skin. OOPS!

The filling turned out pretty good and looked great.

Hello Results: Don’t pick Super Bowl Night to make a pie. Make sure you have enough beans to weigh down the pie crust. Ease up on the zesting of the lemon. If I see the inside of the lemon I have gone TOO far. I did order a Lemon Zester but still do not have it; but, I will use lemon zester next time. Overall, not my favorite tasting pie but that might be because of too much lemon. That makes five pies, so … countdown please… 295 to go!