Pie #18: Conference Pie (Chocolate Pots de Crème Pie)

Last week I went to the University of Georgia for the Design and Analysis of Experiments Conference 2012.  I really enjoyed attending this conference because the steering committee and organizers place a large emphasis on encouraging new researchers. I'm grateful for the welcome and advice from the experienced researchers as well as for the contacts I've made with other graduate students.

 I arrived to Athens in the late afternoon, after having flown over lunch.  Dinner was to be replaced with a snack reception, so I decided to venture out for a complete meal.  Prior to leaving Ohio I had heard rumor of a delicious vegetarian place; Urban Spoon recommended The Grit so I set on the 1.5 mile trek to find some delicious vegetables.  After needing to turn around once, and rerouting once due to a no-sidewalk situation I finally arrived.  Walking through the door I was greeted by a large display case full of cakes and pies; I knew Urban Spoon had suggested wisely!  (Hm, I think there's a statistical application here.  When unsure of the correct answer, go with the recommendation of the masses.  I'll cover more about this another day.)  At any rate, I chose the noodle bowl of the day (complete with vegetables, tempeh, and orange sauce), a delightfully sour lemonade, and a slice of sour cream chocolate pie.  I was in heaven - everything was delicious!  I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the pie - the filling was fairly solid, not like a pudding pie.  However, upon my first bite I knew I had tasted something similar before - my brother in law Travis's chocolate pots de crème.

Several years ago Trav came to visit us and we cooked up a storm.  One item we whipped up was the chocolate pots de crème that he made at his place of employment, Generous Servings.  When we made it together, I was so anxious to eat it that I wasn't able to wait until it set before digging in!  Being reminded of this recipe, I simply had to make it into a pie!

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Chocolate Pots de Crème Pie
(Originally from Cooks Illustrated)

Ingredients:
1 graham cracker crust

filling:
10 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine
5 egg yolks
5 T. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1 3/4 c. cream
1/2 c. milk
1 T. vanilla
1/2 t. instant espresso powder, mixed with 1 T. water (omitted as Perry hates coffee)

topping:
1/2 c. heavy cream
2 t. sugar
1/2 t. vanilla extract

Pie Algorithm:
1. Place chocolate in medium bowl; set fine-mesh strainer over bowl and set aside.

2. Whisk yolks, sugar, and salt in medium saucepan until combined; whisk in cream and milk. Cook mixture over medium-low heat, stirring constantly and scraping bottom of pot with wooden spoon, until thickened and silky and custard registers 175-180 degrees, 8-12 minutes.

3. Immediately pour custard through strainer over chocolate. Let mixture stand 5 minutes to melt chocolate. Whisk gently until smooth, then whisk in vanilla and espresso.

4. Pour mixture into pie shell.  Gently tap against counter to remove air bubbles.  Cool to room temperature; cover and refrigerate.

5. Just before ready to serve, whip all topping ingredients until stiff peaks form.  Place in pastry bag with #4 star tip and squeeze a dollop onto each slice.

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My life is running by at a sprinter's pace, so I once again purchased a crust this week.  (This is also the reasoning behind the boring pictures - no time to make sure I captured the pie well!)  Truthfully I liked the pots de crème better when it didn't have a crust.  It was nice to be able to serve the slices easily as the crust held the filling together nicely.  However, it was harder to enjoy the smoothness of the filling as the graham cracker crumbs mixed themselves in and made the filling feel gritty.

All in all, I cannot complain.  I LOVE this recipe.  While the chocolate is not super sweet, it is very rich.  This allowed me to enjoyed each slice with a steaming mug of coffee.  I would be interested in experimenting with combinations of other flavors - adding the espresso, mint, amaretto, almond, others?  I think any of the above would be delicious either mixed with the chocolate, or in the whipped topping!

Pie #17: Columbian Cookie Pie (Dulce de Leche Pie)

Last week my friend had a Columbian-themed fundraiser meal, for which my contribution was dessert.  For a while I toyed with the idea of making pie...but just couldn't justify the breaking of the theme to satisfy my blogging requirements.  Instead I made some very tasty Columbian cookies called Alfajores which I found on a blog entitled My Columbian Recipes.  The recipe calls for dulce de leche, and even included a recipe to make it from scratch.  It was during the 3 hour cook time that I figured out what my pie would be this week.  I scoured the internet for a dulce de leche pie, and while there were many such recipes, I settled on one from the Big Red Kitchen.  I ended up using the basic pie composition from the Big Red Kitchen, but the dulce de leche recipe from My Columbian Recipes.


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Dulce de Leche Pie

Ingredients:
1 chocolate cookie pie crust (this week it was purchased pre-made)

6 cups whole milk
1.5 cups sugar
1/4 t. baking soda
1/8 t. salt
1 cinnamon stick

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 t. vanilla
2 T. powdered sugar
8 mini Heath Bars, crushed (Perry was a trouper; he took care of this task for me with his hammer!)

Pie Algorithm:
1. Dulce de Leche: In a medium pot, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low, stirring frequently with wooden spoon for about 3 hours or until color changes to caramel and the mixture is thick as a pudding.  Let it cool slightly.  Pour caramel sauce in crust.  Finish cooling to room temperature.

2. Topping: Whip cream, vanilla, and sugar.  Put on top of cooled caramel.  Top with crushed heath bars.  Refrigerate until consumption.

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A few notes about the dulce:
1. This is a good thing to make when there are other things you need to be doing nearby.  It doesn't require much attention except for the very beginning and very end (other than to stir every so often).

2. At the beginning, watch carefully when the pot is about to boil.  The milk expands quickly after a certain temperature and can easily create a sticky stove!

3. At the end don't rely on your timer; instead pay more attention to the thickness of the sauce.  Watching and continuous stirring are important in order to prevent crystallized caramel.

4. I ended up not quite using all the dulce de leche made.  (I saved approximately 1 cup.  This will last approximately 1 week in your fridge.)  The sauce is very sweet - use whatever amount you would like/you can stand in your pie!


Did the pie taste delicious?  Well, I didn't get to taste the actual pie as Perry ended up taking it to work.  However I did use some of the leftover dulce with a bit of whipped topping and crushed candy.  It was delightful - very rich, but very delightful!  As far as the actual pie, Perry remarked that it was gone by 7:15am the morning he took it in.  Based on this observation, yes - the pie did taste delicious!

Pie #16: Gross Pie (Green Tomato Pie)

 

 

While many of the pies I've made so far have been new to me, most of the recipes have been selected/created because I think they will be delicious.  This week I'm in new territory; prior to starting this pie, nothing seemed delicious about it.  But being up for a new adventure, I decided I to act on the green tomatoes in the garden before frost nipped them.  My friend Kathy has found and shared several recipes from The Columbus Dispatch - Green Tomato Pie being one of them.  Thus, I was set!

 

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Green Tomato Pie
The Columbus Dispatch
submitted by Karen Hughes, Galloway


Ingredients:
crust for 1 double-crust pie

2 pounds green tomatoes
juice of 1 lemon
1 1/4 cups plus 1 T. sugar
3 T. flour
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ground cloves
1/2 t. cinnamon
2 T. butter
1 egg white, lightly beaten

Pie Algorithm:
1. Preheat oven to 425F.

2. Thinly slice tomatoes.  Place in a large bowl. Pour boiling water over.  Let stand 3 minutes.  Drain.  Pour lemon juice over tomatoes.

3. Mix 1 1/4 c. sugar, flour, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon together.  Sprinkle over tomatoes.  Toss lightly to coat.

4. Arrange 1 crust in bottom of pie dish.  Fill with tomato mixture.  Dot with butter.  Cover with second pie crust.  Crimp edges.  Brush lightly with egg white.  Brush with remaining 1 T sugar.  Cut slits into pie vent.

5. Place pie on baking sheet.  Bake 25 minutes.  Reduce oven temperature to 350F.  Bake 20 minutes longer or until top is golden brown.

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Remember that old saying about 'If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all?'  This could be a short blog!

At first I was excited about trying this pie.  The tomatoes were several different beautiful shades of green so I figured the pie would be beautiful!  Plus, there was so much sugar added that I figured any hint of tomato flavor had to be wiped out by the sweetness of the pie.  (Remember the Surprise Pie?  I thought that if you can make a tasty pie with zucchini, then surely you can do the same with green tomatoes!)  However my excitement diminished when I got to step 2 and smelled the tomatoes sitting in the boiling water.  Couple this smell with a store-purchased crust (used to save some much-needed time this week), and we have one Gross Pie!

Later that evening, I tried that pie with Perry and Grandma Dixie.  Perry was the bravest, and tried it first.  (Though he wasn't so brave that he could eat it with his eyes open!)  His comments were that if you didn't see the tomatoes, the pie tasted like apple.  This made sense with all the sugar and the spices added, so Grandma and I tried ours.  Grandma agreed with Perry - the pie tasted a lot like apple.  She didn't ask for more, but also didn't seem to mind the pie.  I was not so easily tricked - while the spices did taste a lot like apple, the texture of the tomatoes was awful.  They were slimy and chewy and reminded me of my meat-eating days.  Perhaps this was a result of the pie not baking long enough?  Seeing as I don't plan to make/eat another green tomato pie in the near future, I'm not convinced I will ever know.

I made a second, smaller pie to share with my recipe-bearing friend Kathy and her husband Al.  I realized last week that Al is my secondary pie tester; it seems that he is the person to have tested the most of my pies, only second to Perry!  I really like both Al and Kathy, and I hope that sharing this with them doesn't put a damper on our friendship!

Here's to creating something more delicious next week!

Pie #15: Truly Taupe Pie (Plum Pie)

This week I spent a chunk of my evenings painting my church lobby a color called 'truly taupe'.  No matter how many times people told me the color was a shade of brown (not purple or grey as I saw), all I could think about was making a plum pie to match the purplish color of the wall.  Thus, we have the pie of the week!

In news relating to my other year-long project (my research)...September was a rough month.  This week however, I had a major break-through.  My designs are performing well, and I'm back to cranking out results!  Needless to say, I'm very excited!  Now, back to the pie...

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Plum Pie

Ingredients:
2 pie shells

plums (around 6 cups sliced - perhaps 12ish plums?)
1/2 + 1/8 cups sugar
1 T. lemon juice

2 1/2 T. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt
1/8 t. ground cloves
1 t. cinnamon

milk
sugar in the raw

Pie Algorithm:
1. Wash, pit, and then slice the plums to about 1/2 inch thick.  Mix plum slices, 1/2 c. sugar, and lemon juice in a bowl.  Let sit to juice.

2. In a separate bowl mix 1/8 c. sugar, cornstarch, salt, cloves, and cinnamon.  After mixing well, combine dry mixture with the plums. 

3. Put plums in pie shell.  Cover with remaining shell, brush with milk, and sprinkle with sugar in the raw.

4. Bake at 425F for 25 minutes, then turn down to 350F and bake for 30 minutes more (until thick and bubbling).

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Perry thought this pie was a bit tart; he's looking forward to eating the rest with ice cream!  An alternative would be to simply add more sugar to the recipe.

The pie ended up being red instead of purple as I had envisioned, but it still had a nice flavor.  I wouldn't typically think of making/eating a plum pie, but now that I've made one I think I would make it again.