Thanksgiving: Dessert

The last three pies from Thanksgiving.
Cranberry Apple

This was again a plain butter crust, and the insides are just granny smith apples, fresh cranberries, sugar, and tapioca to hold it together. I used a little extra sugar than I normally would in a fruit pie. I believe it was about a cup and a half. I did not use any regular pie spices. This was all about that cran-apple flavor. I got to use my new food processor for the first time on this one. When I bought the bag of cranberries I had sudden flashbacks to the horror that was depitting cherries and the mess it made of my kitchen. I knew that I couldn't leave the cranberries whole in the pie. Luckily, my new Kitchen Aid chopped the entire bag in less than 20 seconds. True I had to then clean it, and that is never fun, but I think the trade off to not have to slice or crush a bag of cranberries and end up with juice everywhere was well worth it.

Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Pie.
I didn't make this one. In general I don't much like either sweet potato pie or pumpkin pie. As those go this was however quite good. It was made by the lovely Marci.

Chocolate Raspberry Pie

This one was a joint effort with Marci. I made the crust which was a baking experiment. I'd place it as a moderate success. It's a chocolate butter crust. I took the normal ratio I use for a single pie crust (1 cup of flour - 1/3 cup of butter) and replaced 1/4 cup of the flour with cocoa powder. The crust was baked for about 20 minutes using beans as weights to keep it from bubbling up. The filling comes from here.

FILLING:

10 oz. pkg. frozen raspberries
1/2 c. softened butter
2 eggs
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 c. whipping cream
1/3 c. sugar
1/2 c. raspberry jam

Thaw raspberries and reserve juice. Cream together butter and sugar. Stir in chocolate. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat mixture for 3 minutes after each addition. Fold in whipped cream, berries and jam. Spoon mixture into the crust, making slightly raised crust. Chill for 2 hours.
Decorate the top with fresh berries or whipped cream.

It actually took a while for me to find a recipe that looked good for a chocolate raspberry pie. I think if I did it again I might experiment a bit more and rely a little less on the jam which stuck out a little bit especially the next day. Also, be sure to let it chill. We missed that step on Thanksgiving so it was a bit too pudding like. It was perfect the day after Thanksgiving.

We served all of these with a rum infused whip cream that was really excellent, especially with the cranberry apple pie.

More Thanksgiving...

Academic life got in the way of posting more pie photos, but here are some details on the rest of the savory pies from Thanksgiving.

Turkey, broccoli, stuffing pie

This might have been the easiest pie I made, but also one of my favorites. I sauteed the turkey breast at the same time as for the other turkey pie. I used store bought stuffing for the top and a regular butter crust for the bottom. The filling is made up of sauteed broccoli, garlic, the cooked turkey and a can of store bought gravy. I imagine the whole thing would improve if you made the gravy and stuffing from scratch, but for a quick pie this was really good.

Corn Pie

I don't know why but I really wanted to make a corn pie. I think its because Thanksgiving has always included buttered steam in the bag corn. This recipe calls for a cracker crust, which gives me hope for attempting cookie and graham cracker crusts in the future. Recipe can be found here.

Brussels Sprout and Leek Quiche
I adapted this recipe from here as follows:

1 tablespopon butter
1/2 chicken stock
1 leek chopped (white and green parts)
1 pint of Brussels sprouts
2 garlic cloves minced
2 spring onions chopped
1 Tbs herbs de provence
approx. 5 oz. of chive and onion cream cheese
1 cup Gruyere cheese
6 eggs
salt
pepper
1 butter pie shell

Combine first seven ingredients in a pan and saute until tender. Let cool and then stir in cream cheese. Add grated cheese, eggs, salt and pepper. Pour into unbaked pie shell and cook for 40 min at 375 degrees.

The whole thing was baked in a silicon tart pan which worked beautifully this time and let me slide the quiche out and put it on my pretty cake stand.

Dessert pie descriptions soon!

Thanksgiving: Turkey Pie with Chive Mashed Potatoes

The filling was made up of sauteed turkey breast, celery, carrot, mushrooms and peas. I also added some chicken stock and heavy cream. It's seasoned with sage, salt and pepper. I put that in a regular butter crust bottom crust.

The top is made up of chive mashed potatoes. I used 8 small potatoes, mashed with a little more cream and butter and then about two tablespoons of chopped chives. It turned out to be the perfect amount to put on top of the pie. The potatoes had cooled somewhat when i spread them on top of the pie. I baked the whole thing about 40 minutes. It probably would have been good to let the top brown a bit longer, but I had lots of other pies to bake that day.

Happy All PieThanksgiving!

Pictures speak louder and words, and I remain in food coma from the seven pies that made up Thanksgiving dinner. Full details to follow in the week to come.


Here's the dog guarding the food.