Pie #51: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Pie (Bumbleberry Pie)

Wow, I love this pie!  Let me list three reasons why:

1. I felt resourceful making it - it used up all the extra fruits in my fridge.  (Indeed, bumbleberries do not exist in the wild!)
2. The mixture of fruit flavors felt like a circus on my tongue.
3. The crunch topping was just delightful.

We took the pie to our friends' house for dinner, and it was a hit!  There was even arm wrestling discussed to determine the lucky winner of the last piece! (In the end a fair splitting occurred.)

The initial bumbleberry idea came from this website: http://andreadekker.com/bumbleberry-pie/.  However, the recipe I used actually came from a mixture of my earlier blueberry pie and strawberry rhubarb pie.  I think the clove and berry flavors are delightful, and when combined with the tangy rhubarb....Wow!  Just Wow!

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Bumbleberry Pie

Ingredients:
1 pie crust

filling:
4 c. (heaping) mixed fruit - apples, rhubarb, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, etc.
2/3 c. sugar
7 T. cornstarch
1/2 t. cinnamon
3 shakes ground cloves
3 T. water
2 T. lemon juice
1 t. vanilla

topping:
1/2 c. flour
3/8 c. oatmeal
1/2 c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 c. butter
1/2 t. cinnamon

Pie Algorithm:
1. Wash fruit, chop larger fruits to the size of blueberries.  Put in bottom of unbaked crust.
2. Mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and cloves in bowl. Add water, lemon juice, and vanilla.  Stir until mixed well.  Pour mixture over fruit.
3. Mix flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon until crumbly.  Sprinkle on top of fruit.
4. Bake at 375F for 1 hour, or until filling is bubbling and has thickened a bit.

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I suggest chopping the larger fruits into fairly small pieces so the flavors are able to mix better.  However, if you'd rather more distinct fruit flavors, larger pieces would work just fine.

I was excited to be able to use my friend Johanna's homemade vanilla extract in the pie.  I think it added a special, warm, complete flavor!  Perhaps tackling vanilla-making will have to be my next project!

Pie #37: Craft Pie (Apple Praline Pie)

I am not crafty.  I've tried my hand at crafts many times, but always end the session feeling frustrated at my own project, jealous of the other people creating cool projects near me, and disappointed in my lack of crafting talent.  No matter how many times I've tried, I'm never satisfied.  It's gotten to a point that I just generally don't participate in crafting activities.  (If I can't do something well, then I don't want to do it at all!)

Today I went to Crafting Day at my friend Miranda's house.  Per usual, everyone else was making very beautiful and creative projects.  This time, I was also doing something I loved!  I received a 'Craft-Pass', and was invited to bring my pie supplies.

The recipe for the week came from Simply in Season, one of my favorite cookbooks.  Everyone at Crafting Day was very complimentary of the pie, but it isn't my favorite.  The praline flavor was good, I just don't really like apple pie.

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Apple Praline Pie
Simply in Season, by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert

Ingredients:
9-inch unbaked pastry shell
3 cups apples (peeled and sliced)
1/3 cup sugar
2 T. flour
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
3 T. honey
2 T. butter
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans

Pie Algorithm:
1. Combine apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl, tossing to coat apples.

2. Place apples in pastry shell and bake in preheated oven at 400F for 15 minutes.

3. Combine brown sugar, milk, honey, and butter in saucepan and bring to a boil.  Boil 1 minute.  Remove from heat.

4. Add nuts to praline topping.  Remove pie from oven and pour honey-nut mixture over top.  Continue baking at 350F for 30 minutes.


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Pie #21: Disaster Pie (Cranberry Apple Pie)

Running the risk of being a bit over-dramatic, this week's pie is entitled 'Disaster Pie'.  I was hoping for a sweet/tart pie and was sadly disappointed.  After a long day of sending in job applications, my friend Katie and I headed to Giant Eagle to pick up some supper items.  This should have been a short trip; we only needed 5 things.  However after searching the produce section twice and finding it to be lacking cranberries I knew this trip was not going to go as planned.  I was sure I had seen the tart little berries occupying a whole produce display earlier in the week, so I finally gathered up the courage to ask the woman working nearby of their whereabouts.  She informed me that they had sold out.  It looked like my cranberry apple pie was going to be a disaster.  Katie and I went around the produce shelves debating the possibility of substituting each fruit in our pie.  In the end we simply decided to use dried cranberries.

If the absence of cranberries was the only issue, then this would not have been such a disaster.  But...there was more.  After running through all the needed pie tasks, Katie decided it would be safer for her to run the mandolin (slicer) than it would be for her to peel the apples.  She finished the first 1/2 apple without incident, and was well into her second when she exclaimed...."See, I am doing great!  Don't worry about me cutting myself, this is no problem!"  (Or something similar...remembering word-for-word details isn't one of my strengths...)  However, it was that second chunk of apple that bit her.  Well, I guess it wasn't the apple so much that bit her, as it was the slicer that bit her.  Now she exclaimed, "Uh, oh!  This is quickly turning out to be Disaster Pie!"  A bit of water and 3 band-aids later she was all doctored up, and had sliced the rest of the apples like a pro.  (I should note that the cut wasn't so bad that she needed 3 band-aids.  Rather, it was the wetness of the apples and the location of the cut that required so many!)

Now it's time for my confession - I haven't made a standard pie crust since Pie #15.  While I'm slightly ashamed about this, I also simply have not had time.  Some day I'll get back to it, but not today.  This brings me to the next disaster - we purchased shallow pie crusts.  There was no way that the 4 apples Katie sliced were all going to fit into the crust we purchased.  So, we did what any reasonable people would do...and make some cranberry apple crisp with the remainder!  (I guess this ended up being more of a crisis averted than a disaster...but hang with me, I'm trying to stick with the theme here!)

With all of this being said, I'm going to post the recipe I would have LIKED to have made.  The recipe ACTUALLY made used 1/2 c sweetened, dried (non-chopped) cranberries and 1/2 c sugar instead of what is listed below.  We also used a double crust instead of the crumble topping.

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Cranberry Apple Pie

Ingredients:
1 pie crust

1 1/2 c. cranberries, washed and coarsely chopped
3/4 - 1 c. sugar
4 apples (we used Cameo...they are delightful!)
juice from 1 lemon
1/2 T. dried orange peel
1 1/2 T cornstarch
3/8 t. cinnamon
dash nutmeg

crumb topping (see almond crumble topping from Pie #1, alternatively walnut would be good!)

Pie Algorithm:
1. Peel and thinly slice apples into large bowl holding lemon juice.  Add water until the apples are covered.  Set aside.

2. Mix all dry ingredients in separate small bowl.

3. Drain apples completely.  Mix apples, cranberries, and dry ingredients in bowl and let sit for 10ish minutes to juice.

4. Put apple mixture into pie crust.  Cover with crumb topping (or second crust if you prefer).

5. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes.  Turn heat down to 350F and bake for 45-55 min more.

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We ended up eating the crisp instead of the pie; it was delicious.   Katie and I both liked the orange flavor with the cranberries and apples as well as the walnuts we put in the topping.  However, I will say that I'm definitely looking forward to trying again when the store's stock of cranberries is replenished!

Pie #13: Peace Pie (Salty Caramel Apple Pie)

Several weeks ago my friend Savannah made salty caramel birthday brownies for me.  They were very good and have been on my mind ever since.  Of course I've been searching for a way to incorporate salty caramel into a pie.  I toyed with the idea adding it to chocolate, pecan, apple, or a caramel-based pie (among several others).  Then it hit me - I would make a salty caramel pear pie!  I loved the idea of salty and caramel mixing with the delicately sweet pear, and looked forward to it all week.

Adding a little bit of pressure to the week was the fact that this pie was going to be shared at Peace, Pies, & Prophets, a comedy fundraiser for Christian Peacemaker Teams featuring the comedy performance of Ted and Co. and opened by the musical performance of Sour Cherry Pie.  (Yes, that's a shameless plug for my husband's band - more to come on that in a future week.)  At this event there will be pies up for auction as well as pies to be consumed on site.  Knowing people are hoping for tasty pies, I decided a practice pie was a necessity!

 

This week turned out to be a week of changing plans.  I purchased some not-quite-ripe pears towards the middle of the week only to find that they still weren't ripe at the end of the week.  Going with a backup plan, we now have salty caramel apple pie.  I also debated whether I wanted to create my own recipe or follow one that I found online on the Cooking Channel's website.  It looked delicious and I figured it would probably turn out better than the pie in my head, so I decided to go with it.  However, I simply couldn't make their caramel turn out right.  Therefore, the actual pie will have a variant of my family's caramel recipe (that I've been successful in making previously).  Grabbing some ideas from the recipe online and some from Aunt Lu's caramel recipe we have this week's pie.

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Salty Caramel Apple Pie

Ingredients:
2 pie crusts

1/2 cup sugar (white)
1/2 cup Karo
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 stick butter
splash vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt (ground coarsely)

2 lemons
5-6 medium to large apples

1/3 cup raw sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg

milk
raw sugar
sea salt (ground coarsely)

Pie Algorithm:

1. Apple Seasoning: Mix sugar, flour, and spices in small bowl.  Set aside.

2. Juice lemons into a medium bowl and add some water (about 1.5 cups). Set aside.

3. Caramel: Combine sugar, karo, half of cream, and butter.  Bring to a boil and add other half of cream slowly.  Cook slowly to 230F*.  Remove from heat and mix in vanilla and sea salt.  Let sit while preparing apples.

4. Apples: WORKING QUICKLY (but not so quickly that you slice your finger), core, peel, and thinly slice apples - a mandolin slicer works quite well!  Put slices in lemon-water bowl, making sure they have been coated with the lemon juice.  Drain the apples well, and mix the spices into the apples by hand.

5. Place 1/3 of the apples then 1/3 of the caramel in the shell.  Make sure to stir caramel each time so all the salt doesn't settle to the bottom of the pan.  Also apples should be stacked in a way that minimizes open space.  Continue to layer 1/3 apples and 1/3 caramel two more times.  (Save a bit of caramel for the top crust!)

6. Lattice the top crust on the final layer of caramel.  Brush with a bit of milk, sprinkle with some sugar and salt.  Drizzle remaining caramel over the entire pie.

7. Bake at 375F for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 325F and bake for 25-35 minutes more.  (Cook until apples are just soft.)  Filling may bubble over - a pan under the pie helps alleviate an oven covered in burnt caramel!

*When making caramels as candy, you want to bring your liquid to 240F (soft ball stage).  However, because this batch of caramel was going to bake for a while longer I decided to heat the caramel only to 230F in the hopes of preventing another surprise - salty toffee apple pie!

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 The pie pictured at left is the mini-tester pie.  Overall it had a good flavor, but the caramel was too buttery for my taste.  As mentioned earlier I had trouble making the caramel turn out - the first batch turned to powder and the second batch was on its way to powder so I quickly threw in the cream.  Thus it never had the chance to brown and appears visually absent on the pie.  The flavor was there though and while I'm not a huge apple pie lover, the mixture of salty caramel and apple was definitely a plus!  Note the very thin strata of apples!

Pie update:  After waking at 6AM to make my second attempt (pie at right), I was really hoping this pie (the caramel specifically) would turn out better.  I am very hopeful!  While I haven't yet tasted this version, it appears to have turned out just as I had hoped!  We'll see if the crowd likes it!