IT'S RAINING PIES HALLELUJAH...SIMPLE PUMPKIN & CREAM PATISSERIE

“Promises and pie-crust are made to be broken.”
Jonathan Swift

My love affair with pumpkin pie, all things pie continues. The first ever one I made was the Praline Pumpkin Pie from this stunning book Park Avenue Potluck CELEBRATIONS, a book published for cancer cure research & a celebration of food in every way. It's a gorgeous book, with stunning photographs taken in stately NY homes, and is divided into seasonal menus. I found that quite a unique and novel idea. That pie was quite the best pie I've ever made, and so I decided to explore my love for pumpkin more. There are a lot of folk who don't like 'pumpkin' anything & I'm really glad to discover we're a pumpkin loving family as far as desserts go in any case. So now I try and keep some puree in the fridge to try something new. Pumpkin puree on hand makes pie making easy. Cookie dough makes it fun. This was a less luxurious pie as compared to the Praline Pumpkin Pie, which would be my first choice for special pie, but was delicious nevertheless. The kids enjoyed chomping straight warm slices of it. The shortbread cookie dough added some luxury and delicious flavour to it. You can use a regular pie base too if you like.

Simple Pumpkin Pie

Recipe by Julia, author Of Dozen Flours
Adapted from Megans Cooking here
Ingredients:
One regular pie shell, or a pie shell made out of brown sugar shortbread dough, baked blind & cooled

Pumpkin Pie Layer
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

Topping
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Drizzle
1/4 cup low fat cream
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C.
Filling:

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.
Stir in the flour mixture until well blended. Spread evenly over the pie shell.(mixture will be thick and cookie batter-ish.)
Combine white sugar, walnuts & cinnamon in a little bowl. Evenly sprinkle cinnamon mixture over the top of the batter.
Bake for 33-40 minutes (maybe more depending on your oven) or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean. Let the pie cool completely (about an hour).

Optional: After the pie is completely cool, mix a little low fat cream with pumpkin pie spice and drizzle over the top. Alternately, serve warm slices with unsweetened whipped cream.

~

From one who never quite made pies of this sort before. Looking back, I now am amazed at how far I've come & how adventurous I've become. From someone completely eggophobic, to someone who now makes pies using eggs ... WOOT! Makes me do a happy jig, and keeps the family guessing what the next dessert is going to be.

The second pie is a result of a what I thought was a ruined pastry shell meant for the Praline Pumpkin Pie, a dessert which was an absolute celebration of everything pie ... smooth, luxurious & satisfying. My first attempt was far from perfect, maybe given the warm weather. Had to use it elsewhere. I also had 4 egg yolks left over from the Daring Bakers macaron challenge and a shout out on twitter had Pam @ The Cooking Ninja to my rescue, with MILs cream patisserie recipe. For me, who wouldn't touch egg yolks with a barge pole, it was a paradox of sorts. But the cream patisserie was a real breeze. I even began to enjoy the ease of working with the yolks!! Could I dunk it into the shell and make pie? Did!!

A while later Hilda gave me words of assurance that it may just work, and Pam was all enthusiastic about experimenting. I had nothing to lose...and the experiment came out a winner. WE HAD PIE!! A delicious pie, topped with a strawberry concentrate I made with frozen strawberries & topped with grated chocolate curls... Can you tell how good it was? The family loved it!

Crème Pâtissière, Strawberry & Chocolate Pie
Ingredients:
A 9" pie shell (Pam has a good recipe for short crust pastry/pâte brisée)
1 quantity French Pastry Cream (recipe at bottom)
1/2 cup strawberry conserve
Dark chocolate at room temperature for topping

Method:
Pour the cool pastry cream into the pie shell and leave to set overnight.
Ladle the strawberry conserve/concentrate, and spread gently but uniformly. Grate chocolate directly over the pie. Refrigerate till ready to serve.
Crème Pâtissière (French Pastry Cream)
as adapted minimally from The Cooking Ninja
Enough for 1 9" pie shell (serves 4 otherwise)
Ingredients:
½ litre milk
4 egg yolks

1/2 a vanilla bean
130g fine sugar
2 sachets vanilla sugar
30g cornflour
a pinch of salt
Method:
Bring the milk, vanilla sugar & a pinch of salt to a gentle boil in a pot.
In the meantime, whisk the egg yolks and sugar with a wooden spoon in a big bowl until the mixture becomes pale and light. Stir in the flour slowly until it is thoroughly mixed with the egg mixture.
Pour the boiling milk into the mixture a little by little while whisking continuously to avoid curdling. And then stir in the rest of the milk until the mixture is well combined.
Transfer the whole mixture into a pot, with seeds scraped from the vanilla bean, and heat it under low setting. Stir it constantly with the wooden spoon or spatula scraping the sides and bottom until it has thickened.
Once the custard has thickened, take it off the heat, pour it into a clean bowl and let it cool down.

Just before I leave you, I have some fun news for fellow foodies and Macapassionatas!

Jamie @ Lifes A Feast and I have finally organized the second great Mac Attack and with it, we have created our own virtual Mac Kitchen, a place where we can bake macs together, share recipes, share failures and successes, ask questions, help each other through the difficulties and the bumps along the road, encourage and cheer each other on MACTWEETS!

Spread the word to other foodies and food bloggers! Don't be afraid! Let the Mac Games begin!

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