Progressive makes a "pie slicer". I received one as a gift a few months ago and finally took it out to use this past Thanksgiving weekend. Here it is slicing a blackberry apple pie. It did slice fairly effectively, but I'm still ready to stick it in the yard sale pile. The slicer stores in a little plastic container, but that means that for each use you have to unscrew the base, slide each of the cutting wings in and rescrew the thing together. To was and put it away is a pain as it is hard to pull the base cover off. Really, it took two of us in the end. You can use either six or eight wings, but even with eight wings the pie pieces are still enormous. According to the box you can store your pie with the cutter in place like a pie gate. Mine however doesn't fit in my pie storage container as it makes the overall pie too tall. So between the extra time, the clean up, and the giant pie slices I just don't see a purpose for this kitchen gadget.
I made a cherry pie once. I vowed not to do it again until I had a cherry pitter as the last event had resulted in cherry juice all over my whole kitchen, self and dog.
For Chanukah I received a cherry pitter and for the first time since then cherries were on sale so I decided it was time to try again, in honor of the penultimate episode of Dollhouse. Only this time I added apples. I liked the apple cherry combination a lot more than just the plain cherry pie. I like cherries, but I think I like them better as a combination ingredient with other fruit. I had debated about adding blueberries into this mix as well and I think in the future I might try that, but sadly they were a bit pricey this week. The cherry pitter might be my new favorite kitchen toy. I have one made by OXO and using it gives this very satisfying punch to each cherry to push the pit out, sort of like using a leather punch. Someone needs to create one with an automatic cherry loader that would work like a machine gun. The best part of course is that the mess was all self contained.
I had the worst pie crust failure I've had in a long time on this one. I realized in the middle of pie making that I had no cold water in my kitchen and that threw off the timing and temperature of the water I used in making the dough. When it came time to roll it out I managed to get one decent crust out of the dough, but gave up and went for pastry shapes on top. It still worked out to a pretty pie though. The water is still not fixed a day later and the lesson here is always check that before you start cooking and more importantly never ever rent an apartment from Vantage Management if you can avoid it.
The filling is made up of 1 1/2 lbs of cherries, 3 large granny smith apples, 2 Tbs of tapioca, 1 cup of sugar, cinnamon and a few dots of butter.
January 29 will mark the last Dollhouse episode and assuming nothing else comes up, I'm planning the finale of Dollhouse and Pie as well. I started making pie partly for company who came over to watch the first early episodes and I've continued through most of both seasons, so now I'm faced with coming up with a suitable parting pie. It might have to feature red splatter in keeping with the latest few episodes.
Despite it being baking season for most people these past few weeks, I've been taking a bit of a break and working on polishing off a lot of pantry staples that needed to be used up. Winter gift giving season did however leave me with some new toys to play with in the upcoming year. I've got a new silicon baking mat that I used for the biscuits the other day and can't wait to try with cookies. I also got an ever important cherry pitter so that the next time I decide to use fresh cherries my kitchen doesn't resemble a war zone. My cookbook library was also increased with a great book on tarts: Janice Murfitt's Savory to Sweet Pies & Tarts and Ken Haedrich's Pie. This last one includes 300 sweet pie recipes. It clocks in at a hefty 600+ pages. I don't think you'll be seeing a Julie/Julia attempt to get through it in the course of the next year, but I'm very excited about trying some of the pies and tarts in both books during the coming months. The dog is excited too as he's always hoping for leftovers.
So sadly there may not be new pie for a while as I battle a bed bug infestation. Though an exception may be made for the Dollhouse premiere on Friday if I can convince people to come to the war zone. On my quest for bed bugging prep supplies on the way home today I stopped by that mecca of domesticity the Container Store and impulsively bought a pie saver. I'm excited by the prospect of putting pie in it and then being able to stack things on top in the refrigerator. It bills itself as a green replacement for covering pies with aluminum foil and a money saver no less. I think I've still yet to spend $10 on aluminum foil to cover pies, but presumably someday I'll get there.
I still haven't found a single pie slice piece of storageware. I really want one. Apparently tupperware used to make one but not any longer. While I know I could just put a pie piece in a rectangular dish, I'm fascinated by the idea of a pie slice shaped dish. If you ever see one, let me know.
I bought my first (and quite possibly last) piece of kitchenware from William Sonoma last weekend after Crate and Barrel failed me by not carrying a pastry cutter. In honor of my new toy (and the continued sale on peaches) I made blackberry peach pie. Since I was already baking and had some cream to use up I also made cream scones which you can see behind the finished pie. There's even a hungry dog eying them in the background. I made the crust with milk instead of water this time and can't actually say that there was much difference in the taste although the dough itself handled a bit differently. Also I added both tapioca and corn starch and the pie juices thickened much better this time around. Some of that may also have been that I actually let this pie cool before slicing it.
I've been in Maine for the last week and bought a new toy while I was there:
Now I just need to decide what I should make it in it first. I'm leaning towards a fruit tart.
I do think it is a bit of a shame that I didn't get to make pie while in Maine. My little brother's desperately wanted me too, but unfortunately there weren't enough blueberries left from when they went berry picking. That and I was too busy enjoying ice cream. There is no where in the city to get ice cream as good as any of the three places you can walk to from my house in Maine. I hear there might be good ice cream in Brooklyn, but ice cream shouldn't be something you have to plan out in advance. I had Cookies and Cream, Blueberry, Peppermint, and Peanut Butter ice cream. I wonder if you could make ice cream with chunks of pie crust and berries.
In other news about a week ago I was tipped off to someone blogging about making a pie a day. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of butter that would take.
And lastly, the food porn alone makes Julie and Julia worth seeing. There's nothing like sitting in the fifth row of the movie theater staring as scene after scene of tasty concoctions go by.
Cherries are in season and cheap at the fruit and veggie place near my apartment so I decided to make a fresh cherry pie. This is somewhat strange as I don't actually like cherries all that much. On the other hand I do like cherry flavored things, and I remember that I used to like the cherry pie filling that came from a can when I made hamentaschen as a child. Plus I've decided its time to branch out a bit further with the fruit pies.
I decided to run errands before the pie baking and so spent the afternoon at Target ostensibly to buy dog food (which I did, and hauled the giant bag back on the bus) but as with any trip to Target I get inevitably drawn to the kitchen and home sections. On this particular trip to the Back to School section (which does seem a tad bit premature to be thinking about since it is only mid-July) had opened up and I spent time with the office supplies and indulging my nostalgia for Trapper Keepers, Lisa Frank and new boxes of Crayloa crayons, but I digress.
The kitchen gadget wall can occupy for if not quite as long as the one at Crate and Barrel, at least quite some time. I'd been idly thinking about actually getting real baking tools and I was eying the pastry blender. Up to this point I've been cutting butter into the flour for the pie crust with my hands. Now the nice thing about that is that it makes it really easy to be sure you're getting to the right consistency and also there is a theraputic element to squashing chunks of butter with your fingers. However given that I have tendonitis problems in my hands this does sometimes get a bit painful. I was pretty determined to not spend any unneccessary money at Target so I walked away. Then I saw this on the clearance shelf, so for $3.48 I now own a pastry blender. And when I went to make the pie dough, it was so easy and so quick, I might rethink my desire for a food processor.
So this is my new toy:
What I should have also bought was a cherry pitter...but that is a story for another blog post.
The Duchy of Domesticity is the home of all the domestic projects that I feel like sharing with the world. Primarily at the moment this is pie. Because who doesn't like pie?
