Bake Some Pies With Fannie Farmer: Recap

I'm not going to post the full list of completed pies and rankings and whatnot today since there are about 60 pies in my completed list now and I just wanted to do a quick update for now!  I'll do a larger update later on.  Here are a few of the highlights since I last posted:

The Peanut Butter Cream Cheese pie was seriously incredible.  Just pour the filling into a crumb crust and chill it.  So easy, and so delicious.  There wasn't very much sugar, and it was full of protein and healthy fats from all the peanut butter, cream cheese, and butter that it was almost a protein bar in pie form! 

I really loved the Eggnog Chiffon Pie.  Really loved it.  I was starting to think that I didn't like chiffon pies in general since they have all been a little weird in my opinion so far, but this one was perfect. 

Cream of Wheat Custard pie made for the perfect thing to bring to our Life Group's annual New Years Day (or day after as sometimes happens with scheduling) Brunch.  It was light, but filling at the same time.  Not too sweet, and the whole wheat crust was better than I expected!  I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about whole wheat pastry, but now I am excited to try with some different pies too!

The Maple Pecan pie I froze and saved for Christmas was excellent as well.  I was really happy with how it stood up to the freezer.  When we ate it after Christmas dinner you couldn't tell at all that it had been baked a couple weeks beforehand!

I lost some speed working through this list over Christmas, but I am excited to get back into the swing of things.  There are lots of beautiful citrus based pies that I am excited to try out in the coming month or two now it is in season!

Bake Some Pies with Fannie Farmer: Recap

It has been quite some time since I have shared any of my pie adventures with you loyal readers (I'd love to hear from some of you in the comments to prove that I'm not imagining you) but rest assured I have still been on my baking journey.  At this point I believe I have almost completed most of the pies that require fresh seasonal produce.  There are only a few left that I will have to decide whether or not I will make them with what I happen to find in the grocery store or wait until next season. 

Since my last update the pies have been either incredible, or at least quite tasty.  Nothing I tried recenlty has been a complete dud so I am happy about that.  I am also incredibly thankful to my Life Group at Dallas Barnhartvale Church for helping me eat them all!  Sometimes 'doing life together' looks like deep, meaningful conversations, and sometimes it looks like eating a whole lot of pie!  Thanks for being my guinea pigs!

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PIE RANKINGS

1. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
2. Strawberries and Lemon Custard in Meringue
3. Almost Rhubarb Pie
4. Plum Cobbler
5. Yogurt Custard Fruit Pie
6. American Apple Pie
7. Deep Dish Peach Pie
8. Banana Cream Pie
9. Fresh Pear Pie
10. Pumpkin Pie
11. Purely Apple Pie
12. Deep Dish Apple Pie
13. Sweet Potato Pie
14. Buttermilk Pie
15. Deep Dish Berry Pie
16. Pineapple Cream Pie
17. Maple Syrup Cream Pie
18. Spice Pie
19. Vinegar Pie
20. Apple Cobbler
21. Fresh Plum Pie
22. Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie
23. Raspberry Chiffon Pie
24. Fresh Apricot Pie
25. Fresh Peach Pie
26. Apricot Cobbler
27. Vanilla Cream Pie I
28. Marlborough Pie
29. Green Tomato Pie
30. Apricot Turnovers
31. Raisin Pie
32. Fresh Berry Pie
33. Apple Pandowdy
34. Deep Dish Apricot Pineapple Pie
35. Deep Dish Cherry Pie
36. Fresh Cherry Pie
37. Entire Rhubarb Pie
38. Cherry Turnovers
39. Pumpkin Chiffon Pie
40. Cranberry Pie
41. Ricotta Cheese Pie
42. Deep Dish Plum Pie

Bake Some Pies with Fannie Farmer - Apricots Galore and Heritage Pies with Nana

I've got a bit of a backlog of pies to share with you.  I have still been making them, I just haven't got around to writing about it!  These first two I made for our life group - one straight up apricot pie, the other a yogurt custard with mixed fruit.  I found the apricot to be just slightly more tart than I would have wanted it, but others thought it was exactly right.  My personal favourite was the yogurt custard.  I used the most amazing vanilla bean yogurt from Tree Island, as well as duck eggs from a neighbour, and a mix of apricots, cherries, and raspberries for the fruit.  This was a lovely little pie and a super easy process.  Chop fruit.  Mix custard.  Pour over the fruit in the prepared pie shell and bake!

This month we had our holidays, and I took this opportunity to make some heritage pies with my Nana.  We took a break from the regular basic pie crust recipe since of course we had to use my Nana's secret recipe!  So far I have never had anyone be able to guess the secret ingredient!

The first pie was a very interesting vinegar pie.  The main flavouring is apple cider vinegar and I was not sure how it was going to come out.  The few reviews I could find online suggested it was a unique flavour that not everyone appreciated, but a few people absolutely loved.

As a side note, I have such beautiful grandmothers (inside and out).  I hope to grow up to be just like both of them.

This pie looked super weird when it was cooking.  Like really incredibly strange.  The custard was boiling in the oven, and I was wondering what kind of texture it would have when it finished.  The bubble that the top photo shows was twice as large when I opened the oven door!  In the end the custard was so perfect.  When we cut the slices the edges were sharp - almost like jello!

The flavour was very interesting and seemed to change over time.  The vinegar was much stronger tasting in the leftovers we had in the next day or so.  What was really interesting was how much the apple flavour came through.  I would like to try this pie with different vinegars like the fruit scrap vinegars I am making right now.  No time to try things twice right now, but this is one from the overall list that I would definitely come back to again once I am done with this pie challenge I have set for myself!

The other pie we tried was a raisin pie.  I am no fan of raisins in baking and I purposefully decided to do this one when there were lots of raisin lovers around me.  However it turns out I needn't have worried.  Something about this recipe elevated the humble raisins into something even I could appreciate!

The recipe called for golden and dark raisins and that made a rather pretty pie filling.  The sauce they were cooked in to make the filling made the raisins so juicy and accentuated their flavour.  A little bit of lemon zest is not always called for (and often overused) but it truly does help the overall flavour profile here.

I had a lot of fun making these pies with my Nana.  Not pictured here was the deep dish apricot and pineapple pie we also made.  It was incredibly tart, but when paired with vanilla ice cream it was perfect!  Some pies just aren't complete without ice cream!

Bake Some Pies With Fannie Farmer - Cherry Pie Attempt #3

I am in pursuit of the perfect cherry pie.  Every one I have ever had was too sweet or too runny.  Some have been mostly good but felt like some flavour was missing.  

I had great hopes for this deep dish pie, but sadly it was not to be.  I used a mixture of sweet and sour cherries for this one, and I think the flavour profile there was good, but it seemed to cook oddly.  The recipe said to cook it at 425 degrees for an hour, but I think it would have benefited from a blast of high heat and then being turned down to cook lower for longer.  The result here was cherries that were not quite broken down enough - they almost had a mushroomy texture.  Yes.  Pretty weird when eating cherries.  The flavour profile of the mix of cherries was good, but I added almond extract which I think it did not need.

This was the only pie I had time to make this week, but here are the rankings:

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PIE RANKINGS SO FAR

1. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
2. Strawberries and Lemon Custard in Meringue
3. Almost Rhubarb Pie
4. Marlborough Pie
5. Apricot Turnovers
6. Deep Dish Cherry Pie
7. Fresh Cherry Pie
8. Entire Rhubarb Pie
9. Cherry Turnovers
10. Ricotta Pie

Bake Some Pies With Fannie Farmer - Cherries and Cheese Edition

This week's pies contained some interesting ones and a lot of surprises!  One of which was the 'Almost Rhubarb Pie' - basically a rhubarb custard pie - that I would make and happily eat every day for the rest of my life.  Seriously it was amazing.

Essentially you follow the same process as for the 'Entire Rhubarb Pie' but you only add three cups of rhubarb and then you cover it all with some eggs and milk.  Pop the pie crust on and then bake as usual.  I did not expect it to be as fantastic as it was!  I am seriously debating making it again even though there are still a crazy amount of pies still to attempt!

For the next pie I actually had to make some cheese.  Ok.  I didn't have to make it, but store bought ricotta is so disappointing and quite expensive.  Making ricotta was something I have always wanted to try so I took this as an opportunity to learn.

It was so simple!  Heat milk.  Add lemon juice.  Wait until curds separate (you can see the stages of separation in the photo above).  Scoop them out and strain it through a cheesecloth.

Boom.  That's it.

Unfortunately that was the best part of the pie right there.  You make a custard from the ricotta and then pour it into a graham cracker crust (not my favourite) over some raisins (gross), and serve with raspberry sauce (weird).

I would have rather just have the custard in the graham cracker crust and forget about the raisins or raspberry sauce.  That would have been good.  I also thought about drizzling it with maple syrup but forgot to try it.  That would have been good.

Oh well.  Not all the pies can be amazing, I guess!  To be honest Mr. Forager actual liked this one but agreed that the raspberry sauce was a weird choice to pair with it.

Other pies I made but forgot to photograph were the 'Fresh Cherry Pie', 'Cherry Turnovers', and 'Apricot Turnovers'.  None were all that special.  I am still looking for the perfect cherry pie recipe.  They all seem a little one dimensional and/or cloying.  I received some sour cherries from a neighbour so I have great hopes for the pie I make with them.  Maybe I can find the secret with them!

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PIE RANKINGS SO FAR

1. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
2. Strawberries and Lemon Custard in Meringue
3. Almost Rhubarb Pie
4. Marlborough Pie
5. Apricot Turnovers
6. Fresh Cherry Pie
7. Entire Rhubarb Pie
8. Cherry Turnovers
9. Ricotta Pie