A Pie Per Week: Raspberry Pie

Brian:  We had so much fun with this week's pie!  It started out with a trip to Anderson Orchard, in Mooresville, IN.  It is pretty common for us to go there and pick apples in the fall, but we decided to make a summer trip to find some raspberries, and use our bounty for our pie of the week.

Angie:  I've always loved going to the orchard, It is a tradition for my friend Jen and I to go raspberry picking after the kids are back in school.  It was such a gorgeous day to be outdoors, and I thought a raspberry pie would be perfect for the weekend.  Jen and I will have to make another trip for sure!  I love showing the pie making from the vine to the plate.  We did this with strawberries in Florida over spring break, check it out here.

Brian:  The orchard also gave us many great ideas for future pies.  There were peaches, blackberries, rhubarb, and persimmon pulp just to name a few.  We also found something really interesting last year, a cushaw melon.  We can't wait to show you that this fall!

Angie:  Well after we picked and posed for some silly photographs, it was time to get back and start to work on the pie.  As you can tell from the pictures, it was a beautiful day outside.  It was the kind of day to just sit back and watch the clouds.  Andrea and I went off the beaten path and found lots more berries.  I just love lifting up the leaves and finding a bounty of red, ripe berries!

Brian:  As per usual, Angie started on the crust, and with a fruit pie you have two per pie to make.  Meanwhile, I rinsed and patted dry the raspberries.  We also needed some lemon juice for the recipe, so I got to work on that as well.

Angie:  Once the crust was ready, I began to coat the berries with sugar by gently tossing them with the sugar.

Brian:  I dissolved the water and cornstarch in a separate bowl while Angie was working with the berries. I then combined the lemon juice with the cornstarch mixture. We had some issues with our blueberry pie not setting up correctly, so we went with a bit more cornstarch than the recipe called for in the hopes that it would set up more firmly.

Angie:  One thing I have read about, is that some people pre-cook 1/2 to 2/3 of their fruit filling mixture, in an effort to ensure a thicker filling or to reduce bake times.  I think we are going to try that with our next fruit pie.

Brian:  Angie added the mixture to the pie shells, and then she added her decorative flair.

Angie:  We had taken a nap on Saturday after our orchard visit, and decided to work on pies Saturday night.  We didn't plan that real well as it would be after 2:00 a.m. when we pulled the pies out of the oven. We knew we wanted to pie someone at church so we needed to have it finished before we went. The smaller pie seemed to set up just fine, but when we went to cut into the larger pie, it was very watery.

Brian:  Just to let you know, we cooked this pie for a total of an hour and fifteen minutes, so I was hopeful that was enough.  However, it obviously was not.  So much like in backyard baseball, we attempted a "do over." We didn't know if it was recommended or not, but seeing that we had nothing to lose, we decided to bake the pie again on Sunday morning.  Fortunately for us.. it worked!

Angie:  Yum!  I don't care for the seeds in raspberries, but the flavor and texture of this pie was delicious and paired perfectly with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!!

Brian:  I really loved this pie!  I definitely suggest heating it up and adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a winning dessert combination.

Pie Recipient of the Week:

We attend a great church, Kingsway Christian Church, and we have many pastors that help serve our congregation and community.  We chose to give a pie to our lead pastor Matt Nickoson.  Matt has been involved as a youth minister prior to joining Kingsway, and it is great to have a well rounded pastor, who can communicate with children and adults.  He has a passion for serving all, but we love how he is always seeking to reach the lost or those who are new to Christianity.  It is a great church, and if you are in Central Indiana, you should check it out!

One reason we started this blog was to spend more time together as husband and wife.  Our church is starting a new sermon series next month on marriage and we are so excited to dive in and find ways to better our relationship.  Even is you aren't in our neck of the woods, you can access podcasts here.

Recipe

1 9-inch unbaked double crust pie shell

5 1/2 Cups Raspberries

1 1/2 Cups Sugar

1/4 C Water

3.5 Tbs. cornstarch

1 Tbs. lemon juice

1/8 tsp. salt

Rinse berries and pat dry.  Gently toss berries with sugar to coat them.  Dissolve the cornstarch in the water and then add the lemon juice and salt.  Gently stir the cornstarch mixture into the berries.  Pour into shell and add the second crust.  Cover with a pie guard, and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 35-40 minutes.  Remove pie guard and cook for an additional 10 minutes if necessary.

More important than time, you need to make sure the pie has heated until it is thick and bubbly.  Cooking times will vary, and you may consider pre-cooking the pie filling before adding to the pie shell.  This will make the filing thicker and may reduce the overall cook time.

About Your Bakers

A Pie Per Week: Gingerbread Pie

Gingerbread Pie

Brian:  We really don't have our pie schedule planned out in advance, nor the pie recipients.  We do have some pies and folks to receive pies in mind, but there is a bit of spontaneity in how each week unfolds.

Recipe from Old Fashioned Pie Recipes

Angie:  While visiting Madison, Indiana last week, I picked up a cook book called Old Fashioned Pie Recipes.  In it, there was a recipe by "Grandmother Richardson."  It seemed like a sign we should try it.  I have altered the name from "Crumb Pie" to "Gingerbread Pie," just because it is more descriptive of the actual flavor.  Also, we doubled the recipe, so the recipe we used will be below.

Parchment Paper Pie Crust

Brian:  You start with an unbaked pie crust, and then you get to work on the ingredients for the pie filling.  Angie has officially fallen in love with the crust she makes with parchment paper.

Sugar, Flour, and Spices

Angie:  In one bowl you mix together the flour, sugar, and spices. You add in your butter, and then get a pasty cutter to add the butter to the mixture.

Combine dry ingredients with Molasses Mixture

Brian:  You then take your baking soda and molasses and mix them together, while adding your water.  One warning, don't wait to long on your water or it might evaporate on you.  Not that I did that or anything... :)  Angie:  twice ;)

Adding the mixture to the shell

Angie:  After you combine the dry mixture with the molasses mixture, you simply pour into a pie shell.  When we first did this, we knew the recipe did not make enough of a mixture.  We double all of our ingredients, since we make two pies, and there was just enough for one pie shell.  So, we put the first pie in and doubled the ingredients again for pie number two.

Brian:  If you like Gingerbread, Gingersnaps, or Molasses cookies, I think you will enjoy the pie.  Since I like all three, you might guess that I loved it.  Cool Whip is a really nice garnish for this pie.

Angie:  My goodness I loved this pie!  It reminded me of these giant gingerbread cookies from the Sugar and Spice shop in the Indiana Memorial Union on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University.  Which made me happy, then thinking about the fact my son drove off this afternoon to spend a pre-admission week at IU, made me a little sad.  Ah, the emotions of a mom who is a year from sending her first baby off to college are kind of like roller coaster.  The pride and excitement of sending him off to start his adult life crossed with the need for him to never, ever leave my side are so conflicting in this momma's soul.

Pie Recipient of the Week:

Our pie recipient of the week is my good friend and co-worker, Lisa.  Lisa is just one of those people who was made for the world of training.  She is passionate about what content she develops, how she is delivering her message, and ultimately the experience of the end user.

She unfortunately hurt herself this week, and I was hoping the pie would also serve as a "Get Well Soon" message.  I'm proud to know her as a friend, and I just hope she got the opportunity to try it!

Recipe:

1 9-inch unbaked pieshell
1 1/2 cup flour
Pinch salt
1 cup sugar
2 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ginger

In a mixing bowl combine flour, salt, sugar, and spices.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter.  Set aside.  In another larger mixing bowl stir together the molasses, boiling water, and baking soda.  Beat till mixture becomes foamy and rises.  Stir crumb mixture into molasses mixture.  Mix well.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 45 minutes until filling is firm.

A Pie Per Week: Campfire Pie

Brian:  We knew we were going camping this weekend, and this posed two unique challenges for us.  First of all, we had to figure out how to cook in a unique environment, and secondly we were far from home for our normal pool of pie recipients.

Angie:  If you search for campfire pies, there are lots of recipes.  However, many of them were just pies where you just heated up a pie filling, or s'more pies that you actually cooked at home.  I wanted to try something a bit more challenging.  However, we also wanted to make sure it tasted good.  I knew a normal pie crust would easily burn on a campfire so I thought using a graham cracker crust would be best.  I really love magic cookies bars my mom made when I was young and thought it could be easily modified for our camp pie.

Brian:  Cooking a pie over a fire can be difficult, because it is very difficult to control the heat.  You also don't have an oven, so you need to account for that as well.

Angie:  I added the graham cracker crumbs and butter, and this was easy to get started.  Next I added a can of sweetened condensed milk, and I improvised the ingredients because we wanted it to be s'more like and the kids didn't want the coconut you usually find in the bar cookies.

Brian:  Next she had me measure out 1/2 cup of Caramel chips, chocolate chips and vanilla chips.  We also added a full cup of marshmallows on top.  I have a funny relationship with marshmallows.  I find room temperature marshmallows disgusting, but if you roast them or melt them... they are delicious!

Angie:  Since we didn't have an oven at our disposal, we cooked the pie in our iron skillet, and then covered it with aluminum foil to simulate the oven cooking environment.  Because we only had one iron skillet we had to cook them one at a time.  We started with 20 minutes and then kept adding more time until it looked right on the top.  I was so hoping the bottom wasn't going to be totally burned!  We let it cool for an hour or so.  As much as you can cool a pie outside in 90 degree heat ;)  I thought it turned out delicious!! It all melded together very nicely.  I loved the caramel addition to the normal s'more ingredients!  

Brian:  This pie was great!  I was worried about the crust burning or just a part of the pie, because we had an uneven heating surface, but everybody seemed to love it!

Pie Recipient of the Week

Our pie recipient of the week is Rachel!  This is a first for us as we wanted to give the pie to a complete stranger, and complete a random act of kindness.  She was always very friendly at the gate, and when we gave her the pie she said, "You have just become my favorite campers ever!"  We may try to do a little more of this, I know it always restores my faith in mankind when I am a benefactor of compassion from a complete stranger, so hopefully we did the same for Rachel.

Recipe

1 1/2 cup graham crackers crumbs

1/2 cup butter

14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup caramel chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1 cup mini marshmallows

Over a smoldering campfire place an aluminum pie pan in an iron skillet or dutch over.  Melt butter in pan, then add graham cracker crumbs, mix together and press to the bottom of the pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk over the crust.  Distribute all the chips evenly over the milk, then add the mini marshmallows over the top.  Use a lid if you have one or use aluminum foil to cover the pan.  Cook for about 40 minutes over the coals until pie is bubbly on top.  Let cool, slice and serve!

About Your Bakers

A Pie Per Week: Blueberry Pie

Brian:  For all of our American readers, Happy Independence Day!  It has been an odd 4th of July.  We went to Bloomington as we usually do, but they did not have fireworks this year.  We did have some in our neighborhood, but that was over the previous weekend.  It just seemed odd not engaging in fireworks on the 4th, so we wanted to do something patriotic with the pie.

Angie:  We normally go to a quarry and celebrate the holiday, but with all of the rain we have had it just didn't happen.  This pie really was a last minute decision, but we had some blueberries recently that tasted really good and we wanted to try and make pies that take advantage of fruit that is in season.

Brian:  Angie did the parchment crust again this time, and with the blueberry pie, it is a total of 4 crusts when you account for top and bottom.

Angie:  I really like the crust recipe and have been able to get it to turn out well several times now.  I thought it would be fun to make stripes like on the flag and one big star in the corner.

Angie:  After you combine all of the ingredients with the blueberry pie, you simply place it in the oven for 50 minutes until golden brown.  I would cover the edges with foil or a pie crust shield to prevent burning.

Brian:  The flavor was good, but this is the first pie that really didn't seem to turn out right for us.  We do a new pie each week, and after about 20 pies, I'm really surprised it hasn't happened more frequently.  The ironic thing was that when Angie was putting this in the oven, I asked "Do you put on a blueberry glaze?"  And she answered, "No, I think it just creates it's own juices."  And boy did it create!  :)  I'd love a chance of a re-do of this as the pie was really tasty.

Angie:  Blueberry is a really simple pie and the flavor of this recipe was delicious but it was way too soupy so I'm going to make corrections to the recipe before I even give it to you!

Pie Recipient of the Week

Our pie this week goes to our neighbors David and Rebecca.  Our youngest daughter Emilee has been friends with their children since she was old enough to walk.  We have shared some fun summer nights and Daddy Daughter dances as well.  Always willing to lend a hand, including using their snow blower to help clear some drifts in front of our house this winter, they are very deserving of the pie.

Recipe

Blueberry Pie

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup white sugar 6 tablespoons cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 cups fresh blueberries, washed 1 recipe  for a 9 inch double crust pie 1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2.	Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon, and sprinkle over blueberries.
3.	Line pie dish with one pie crust. Pour berry mixture into the crust, and dot with butter. Cut remaining pastry into 1/2 - 3/4 inch wide strips, and make lattice top. Crimp and flute edges.
4.	Bake pie on lower shelf of oven for about 50 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

About Your Bakers