chocolate cream pie

3 egg yolks
1 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbl. cocoa
1/3 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 c milk
2 Tbl. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Separate and set aside 3 egg yolks in a small bowl.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together sugar, cocoa, flour, and salt. Add milk. Turn on the heat to high to get the mixture hot faster. Whisk continually to keep the cream from burning. Just before it starts to boil, turn it down to medium and continue to stir. Once it is boiling, allow it to boil for 2 minutes.

Take it off the heat and pour a moderate amount of hot mixture into the egg yolks. Quickly whip the yolks and cream and pour it back into the pan while stirring constantly to avoid burning. Boil 2 min longer. Remove from heat and turn off burner.

Add the butter and vanilla. Stir well and immediately pour into cooled pie crust (deep dish, if you're pre-buying like me!). Cover w/ plastic wrap, making sure the wrap touches the surface of the pie (this acts as a synthetic film so your pie won't get one). Put in fridge for several hours to set.

*don't double the recipe. I tried it once and ended up with two impossibly runny pies.

Whipped Cream:
In mixing bowl, whip together until stiff peaks form:
1 c whipping cream
1/4 c powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

(*for Christmas pies, crush up candy canes to fold into the whipped cream).

Apple Gruyere Pie

I just renewed my Netflix account two days ago and started watching the short lived but critically acclaimed television series Pushing Daisies. It is very fun and quirky and I wish it had found an audience so it would have been on longer than two seasons.

The show is about a pie-maker who can bring the dead back to life with a touch–and kill them again with a second touch. Needless to say, the hapless pie-maker brings a dead woman back to life and falls in love with her, realizing that he can never touch her. In addition to all the macabre antics surrounding reanimated corpses and the like, the show features two spinster aunts who are afflicted both with social anxiety disorder and a great love of expensive cheese. Make sense? No…? Well, like I said, it’s quirky.

Well, anyway, Chuck, the pie-maker’s undead girlfriend sends her cheese-loving aunts an apple pie with Gruyere baked into the crust. In an attempt to cheer them up and alleviate their social anxiety disorder, she laces the pie with homeopathic anti-depressants. I was inspired by Chuck’s pie and decided that I must make this pie, although sadly, without the homeopathic anti-depressants.

Searching the internet I soon discovered that I wasn’t the only inspired to try and make this pie so I read several of the recipes and combined different parts of each one and came up with this recipe. The pie turned out absolutely delicious so I decided to share it on the Humble Pie.

(The next thing in my Netflix Queue is Babette's Feast, which helped inspire this blog; Maybe it will inspire me to post more often.)

Apple Gruyere Pie

Crust Ingredients:

1 - 1/2 cubes (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/4 cup vegetable shortening cut into 1/2-inch pieces

5 to 7 tablespoons cold water

12 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 2 3/4 cups, plus extra for dusting

1 teaspoon table salt

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

3 ounces Gruyere cheese finely grated

Directions for the crust:

Place the butter, shortening and water into the refrigerator for 1 hour.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, salt, Gruyere and sugar by pulsing 3 to 4 times. Add the butter and pulse 5 to 6 times until the texture looks mealy. Add the shortening and pulse another 3 to 4 times until incorporated.

Remove the lid of the food processor and sprinkle in 5 tablespoons of water. Replace the lid and pulse 5 times. Add more water as needed, and pulse again until the mixture holds together when squeezed. Divide dough in half. Shape each half into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to overnight.

Filling Ingredients:

5 Tart Peeled Apples (I used Granny Smith apples)

1 cup Sugar

2 tablespoons Flour

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon Cider Vinegar

1 tablespoon Lemon Juice

Directions for filling:

Peel and slice your apples. Soak them in water with a tablespoon of lemon juice. This will prevent the first apples cut from turning a funky color.

In a large mixing bowl mix the remaining ingredients. Drain the water off of the apples and mix them with the spices.

Roll out the bottom piecrust put in glass pie plate. Cut the excess dough off so the crust is on the edge of the pie pan but not over. Puncture the crust with a fork.

(Making my own crust scares me and I normally just use the Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust but since I had to add the Gruyere cheese I had to bake my own. This tutorial was very helpful, if you feel you need step by step instructions for pie crusts watch this tutorial.)

Add the pie filling to the pie plate, dot with pieces of butter, and then roll out the top crust. Make 4 slits in top piecrust to let the steam out of the pie. Lay the piecrust over the top of the pie then cut the excess dough from the top crust so that there is a one-inch overhang off the pie plate. Roll top crust over the bottom crust and then in and then press to make a decorative edge. Grate a little more Gruyere on top of the pie crust.

Directions for baking the pie:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place pies on a cookie sheet to catch any drips, put in oven, and bake for 60 to 80 minutes, or until you can see the filling bubbling up between the slits in the crust. I put foil around the edge of the crust so it wouldn’t get too brown and took off the foil for the last 15 minutes of baking. Cool on a wire rack at least 20 minutes before serving.

strawberry crumb tart

It's strawberry season here in North Carolina and I bought my first strawberries this week and I can't wait to go pick some more this weekend. So I found this fantastic recipe courtesy of Emeril and The Food Network and had to share. He calls it a pie, but it's really a tart. Since he called it a pie I didn't bother to read the directions until I was well into it and saw that I needed a tart pan. Alas, I didn't have one so I used my spring form pan which worked fine. I also think just a pie pan would be fine as well.

I also don't have a food processor so I just made the crust with my Kitchenaide and had no problems.

Enjoy!

Ingredients
Pie Crust:

* 1 stick butter
* 3 ounces cream cheese
* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* Pinch salt

For the crumb topping:

* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup oatmeal
* 4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly

For the filling:

* 6 cups (2 pounds) quartered strawberries
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
* 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
* 1/4 teaspoon grated orange zest

Directions

In the bowl of a food processor combine butter and cream cheese and process until smooth. Add flour and salt and process just until mixture comes together to form a ball. Remove dough from the processor and shape into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

While the pie crust is chilling, prepare the crumb topping. Combine the 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and the oatmeal in a small bowl and toss to combine. Add the melted butter and stir until thoroughly incorporated. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Working on a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough out to a thickness of 1/8-inch and fit it into a 9 or 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Return pie crust to the refrigerator for 20 minutes, then blind bake until lightly golden, about 18 minutes. Remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool while you assemble the strawberry filling. Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.

In a mixing bowl combine the strawberries with the sugar, lemon juice, orange zest and cornstarch and toss to combine. Spoon the strawberry filling into the prepared piecrust and spread the crumb topping evenly over the top of the filling. Bake in the middle of the oven for 1 hour, or until filling is bubbly and crust and crumb topping are golden brown. Transfer to a rack to cool to room temperature before serving.

Key Lime Pie

I just posted this recipe to my ward's recipe blog. We have an enrichment focus group recipe exchange once a month it's lots of fun to meet with all the ladies and chat and eat. This month's theme was Summer Favorites. Nothing is more summery to me than Key Lime Pie. This is my family's (I think Devry made it first) adaptation of Martha's recipe. Enjoy!

Key Lime Pie – Martha Stewart
Martha says, "Look for brightly colored, smooth-skinned limes that are heavy for their size. Small brown areas on the skin won't affect flavor or succulence, but a hard or shriveled skin will. You'll know the pie is done when the center is set but still quivers when the pan is nudged. Before serving, chill the pie in the freezer for 10 minutes; this will make slicing easier."

* 1 1/2 cups graham-cracker crumbs
* 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
* 5 tablespoons sugar
* 1 (14 ounces) can sweetened condensed milk
* 4 large egg yolks
* 1/2 cup freshly squeezed key-lime juice
* 1 tablespoon grated key-lime zest, plus more for garnish
* 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Combine graham-cracker crumbs, butter, and 3 tablespoons sugar in a medium bowl; mix well. Press into a 9-inch pie plate, and bake until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Remove from oven, and transfer to a wire rack until completely cooled.
2. Lower oven to 325 degrees. In a medium bowl, gently whisk together condensed milk, egg yolks, key-lime juice, and zest. Pour into the prepared, cooled crust.
3. Return pie to oven, and bake until the center is set but still quivers when the pan is nudged, 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack.
4. Shortly before serving, combine cream and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on medium speed until soft peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon over cooled pie; garnish with zest. Serve immediately.

Dana’s Substitutions:
Because I’m not as hard-core about my ingredients as Ms. Martha and in the interest of saving time I use a few short cuts. I use a ready made graham cracker crust and I use bottled key lime juice. The brand I can find the most is “Nellie and Joe’s Famous Key West Lime Juice”. Also for the zest I use a lemon because key lime juice is yellow so it’s not such a jarring contrast in the baked pie as the zest from a regular lime.

pecan pie

This is an extremely easy and divine Martha Stewart recipe:

4 eggs, beaten
1/2 c sugar
1 c dark Karo syrup
1/2 c light Karo syrup
1 1/2 c chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla

Mix and pour into chilled pie crusts and decorate with whole pecans.
Bake @ 350 for 40 min.

Key Lime Pie

Makes 2 pies

I’ve served this pie for Mother’s Day activities in YW and RS many times. It’s a hit, and the easiest key lime pie ever. Light, great for spring and summer.

Easy Key Lime Pie

2 graham cracker pie crusts (not the cheapo kind as it’s skimpy, better yet make your own)
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (6 oz) can frozen limeade concentrate
1 (12 ounces) carton Cool Whip
drop or two green food coloring


Combine Sweetened condensed milk, limeaid and cool whip in bowl
Stir until thoroughly mixed.
Pour into 2 graham cracker crusts.
Let chill.
Filling will become firmer when chilled.

This is also good with frozen pink lemonade.