Classic Plum Pie

I went to make a Jammie Dodger Pie to bring to a friend's house for dinner, and the grocery store was out of raspberries.  So, I figured I would follow the original recipe for plum pie that I based the Jammie Dodger Pie on.

Ingredients:

8 plums, pitted and cut into eighths

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 tablespoon of ground cloves

2 tablespoons of King Arthur Flour's Signature Secrets

Directions:
Mix ingredients together and cook over low heat until the plums release their juice and it comes to a boil.  Then spoon into a crust, cover with another crust cut with vents.  Brush the crust with milk and sprinkle with a handful of sugar.  Bake for 10 minutes at 425oF, then reduce the heat to 375oF and bake for another 35 minutes.  Let cool completely before serving.

I thought that using a tablespoon of ground cloves was a lot, since for a pumpkin pie I only use 1/4 teaspoon.  While the filling was cooking and while it was baking, it smelled like the summer of 1999.  It smelled like I had a dozen 18 year-olds smoking Djarum Specials in my kitchen and I thought "Oh shit, I am going to have to throw this out."

However, once it came out of the oven, the smell mellowed.

The pie, served with Vanilla Bean ice cream, was a huge it.  You could taste the clove but it was not as overwhelming as I had originally feared.  My husband ate a whole piece, which I take as huge complement.  Even a little boy, who I think would live off of white rice and soy sauce if he could, ate almost an entire adult-sized serving.  This is a fantastic pie, and I think I may enter it into fair contests next summer.  I am just wondering if I need to find a way to incorporate a vanilla custard layer to keep the excellent balance that it had with the ice cream.  Well, I have eleven months to figure that out.

Piece out!
Justin

Illinois State Fair

I entered the Blackberry Mint Julep Pie in the Berry Pie Category at the Illinois State Fair.  It did not place in the top three.  I had some hesitation about the blackberry filling as I made it.  It seemed to overthicken, which would have made it chewy.  I think I added an extra tablespoon of Instant ClearJel.  But I am now thinking that it doesn't matter if you are using 18 ounces or 24 ounces of blackberries, you should still only use three tablespoons of Instant ClearJel and it should all be added at the beginning of the cooking process with the sugar (instead of adding it toward the end after the berries have released the majority of their juice).

On Friday, August 21st, I made the trip back down the Springfield with my Pumpkin S'mores Pie.  When I dropped the pie off for judging at 2pm, I also had the pleasure of meeting Linda Hoskins, the Executive Director of the American Pie Council.

Three hours and fifteen minutes later.  I was awarded Second Place in the Pumpkin Pie Contest by Miss Illinois County Fair, Sadie Gassmann.

I actually tied with the woman who won third place, but then after a tie-breaker judging I was awarded second place.

I am super proud of this accomplishment and could not be happier.

The recipe for the marshmallow meringue was slightly altered from previous versions of this pie.  I eliminated the sugar and whipped the marshmallow creme into the egg whites instead of folding it in later.

Here is the new recipe:

3 eggs whites

1/4 teaspoon of salt

7 oz of marshmallow creme.

Whip the egg whites and salt into soft peaks, then spoon in the marshmallow creme a spoonful at a time and continue to whip into stiff peaks.  Then spoon onto the pumpkin filling and toast with a kitchen torch.

Piece out!

Justin

Jammie Dodger Pie

Since plums are in season, I wanted to make a plum pie.  Almost all of the recipes that I found called for clove.  But it is August, and I tend to think of clove as an autumn flavor.  Since plums have very little identifiable flavor of their own, I wanted to combine them with a summer flavor.  

I decided to turn to the flavor found in Jammie Dodgers.  A Jammie Dodger is a British shortbread sandwich cookie.  The filling is a raspberry flavored plum jam.  Jammie Dodgers were featured heavily on Doctor Who during the run of Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor.

To recreate the flavor in a pie form, I used the following recipe.

Ingredients:

4 black plums

4 red plums

6 oz of raspberries

1 cup of sugar

3 tablespoons of King Arthur Flour's Signature Secrets

2 pie crusts

Directions:

Pit and cut the plums into 8ths.  Combine the plums, raspberries, sugar and Signature Secrets in a large sauce pan over medium heat.  Cook the filling until the juices start to bubble and thicken.  Pour the filling into a pie crust.  Cut a heart into the center of the other pie crust and lay it over the filling.  Crimp the edges.  Brush the crust with milk and sprinkle with a handful of sugar.  Bake at 425oF for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375oF and bake for another 35 minutes, or until the crust is a golden brown.  Let cool before serving.

The pie is fantastic.  The Signature Secrets makes a great filling: juicy, not gluey.  The raspberry flavor kind of dominates, probably due to the raspberries breaking down while the filling was being made.  The plums were cooked perfectly; which, in turn, gave the pie a great texture.  I would gladly make this pie again.

Piece out!

Justin

Sweet Corn Custard Pie

What do you do when a guy who loves your pie gives you a bunch of sweet corn?  You make a sweet corn pie.  I got the idea from my sister who lived in Thailand for a year, where they serve corn pies at McDonald's.  Instead of making a pocket pie, I wanted to use sweet corn in a regular round pie.

Ingredients:

1 pie crust

4 ears of corn

1/3 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

3 eggs

1/2 cup of milk

2 tablespoons of cornstarch

2 tablespoons of heavy cream

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Directions:

Cream the corn off of the cobs.

Mix sugar and cinnamon, and add to corn.

Beat in eggs.

Make a slurry with the milk and cornstarch, and add to filling.

Add heavy cream and vanilla extract.

Pour into pie crust.

Bake for 35 minutes at 375oF.

Rotate and bake for another 20 minutes.

Let cool for two hours, then refrigerate.

This makes a really nice custard pie.  The cinnamon may have been a little heavy, so you may want to back it down to 1/2 a teaspoon.  The texture is weird, but amazing.  You get the smooth custard and then you get little pops of sweet corn flavor.  It's a fun pie to eat.  The balance of flavor is really nice and leaves you feeling satisfied, but not heavy in the stomach.

Piece out!

Justin

Bakers Square's Blackberry Bavarian Bliss Pie

Last month, I went to Bakers Square for lunch on a Wednesday to take advantage of Pie Rush Wednesday.  I tried their pie of the month, the Blackberry Bavarian Bliss pie.  It was advertised with huge posters in the restaurant with signs saying "Black is the New Berry."

I was hoping for something to inspire me with a way to make my Blackberry Mint Julep pie better. I was not inspired.  It looks much better in the picture than it does in real life, which made me feel better about the appearance of my pie.  The pie was a good amount of sweet, but lacked any real flavor.  Nothing made me say "Now, THAT is a blackberry pie."  I was left feeling much better about my pie as I feel that it has a much better flavor than this pie, which won the Berry Flavor in the Gourmet Category at the 2015 American Pie Council's National Pie Championships.

Piece out!
Justin

Deep Fried Pumpkin Pie

While I was walking around at the Lake County Fair, I came across a food stand that sold deep fried pecan pie and deep fried pumpkin pie.

On Friday, I got a deep fried pumpkin pie with powdered sugar on Friday.  It was good, except the pumpkin pie is frozen, so there is a thin layer of batter on the pie that does not cook all the way under the crispy funnel-cake like exterior.

On Saturday, I went back to try the deep fried pecan pie.  But they were out of pecan.  So I tried the deep fried pumpkin pie with whipped cream and cinnamon sugar.  This was by far better than getting it with just powdered sugar.  The whipped cream helped to draw away the attention to the uncooked batter, and I doubt that I would have noticed it at all had I not gotten it with just powdered sugar the day before.

Basically, if you see this at a fair: eat it!

Piece out!
Justin

Lake County Fair Results

I entered three pies in the Lake County Fair pavilion competitions: Amaretto Sour Custard Pie, Bananas Foster Pecan Praline Pie, and Pumpkin S'mores Pie.

After baking all day on Saturday, when it was in the high 80s, I dropped off all three pies on Sunday, the 26th.  I dropped them off fairly early, so none of my competitors in the pie division had dropped theirs off yet, but I was hopeful after seeing some of the entries in other division.  I then had to wait until Wednesday, the 29th, to see the results.  

Amaretto Sour Custard Pie: First Place

Pumpkin S'mores Pie: First Place

Bananas Foster Pecan Praline Pie: Second Place

This means that next year, I cannot enter the Pumpkin or Custard classes.  However, I think I will also enter the Chocolate Chip Cookie and Snickerdoodle classes, as I think the recipes I inherited from my mother would do very well in those classes.  

Until then, I get to look at this:

Piece out!

Justin