Annie was slated for pie the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but there was still a good amount of leftover pie, so we decided to shift her back a week. That made it December, which means Christmas, which means candy canes.
It looked even better as a whole pie, but we forgot to take a picture till it had been sliced.
Candy Cane Pie is a wintery festive concoction based principally on cream cheese, instant pudding mix, and gelatin. Chocolate chips, crushed candy canes and a bit of peppermint extract give it a Christmassy chocolate-mint flavor. It’s topped with a layer of white chocolate ganache, semisweet chocolate drizzle, and snowflake sprinkles (and more crushed candy canes). Standard Oreo crust.
The flavor of the pie was wonderful. Cool, creamy, minty, and chocolatey. The consistency was a little less wonderful. It was a bit goopy and clumpy in some spots, and a bit runny in others. When you cut a slice out of the main pie, the side of the slice that you left behind started leaking juices (tasty juices, but a little less than appetizing-looking). The white chocolate ganache layer probably could have used a bit more cream to make it softer, because it was hard to cut through, both to slice the pie and to eat it. But what a way to kick off Christmastime!
This whole Pie Project really had its genesis last Thanksgiving. We made a bunch of pies throughout the month of November 2018 and that led to the decision that we needed to own more pie plates, and that led to the Pie Project as a way to put them to good use. A year later, after establishing pie as our be-all-end-all for the year, we knew we had to do something epic for Thanksgiving. We decided the way to go would be to have six pies, bringing our total for the year up to 66 pies. Each family member could choose one pie. It could be a repeat of a pie we’ve already had this year, or it could be a new one. As it turned out, we had two repeats and four new ones. In no particular order:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough “Ice Cream” Pie
Even lovelier than the one from June
Leah’s choice was the re-creation of the pie which prompted a friend to say “This is the best pie I’ve ever had in my life!” There is no actual ice cream in this pie, but it’s a frozen mixture of cream cheese, Cool Whip, cookie dough balls, and chocolate chips in an Oreo crust. It was one of the more popular pies of Thanksgiving, especially among the younger set.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
There is light-colored peanut butter hiding under that lovely chocolate ganache, promise.
Annie’s choice was the traditional chocolate peanut butter pie we have had every Thanksgiving for many years, but hadn’t included in the Pie Project till now. It’s essentially a buckeye candy in pie form: a powdered sugar/butter/peanut butter mixture for the filling, a chocolate ganache topping, and an Oreo crust. This was the first pie to be all gone – the kids went crazy on it on Black Friday afternoon.
Apple Pie
The prettiest pie of the year? Yup.
Someone had to make sure that there was an apple pie at Thanksgiving, so Ellie and Matt kind of combined forces. Technically, this was Matt’s choice, but Ellie accepted his suggestion for her choice. This is the traditional apple pie we’ve been making for a few years now, but with a new crust that we’ve discovered during the Pie Project, made with both butter and butter-flavored shortening. In order to make it special, Matt made the top a couple of days in advance and spent quite a long time on it. It’s hard to braid pie dough, but check that out. Breakfast the next day was awesome.
Cranberry Gingersnap Pie
The sprig of green came straight from our backyard. The sugared cranberries look great too.
What’s Thanksgiving without cranberries? But no one likes the cranberry sauce that keeps the shape of the can. This pie, suggested by Matt but technically chosen by Ellie, was the talk of Thanksgiving. We all expected it to be good (well, those of us willing to eat non-chocolate pies), but it exceeded all of our expectations. The filling is a cranberry curd made by boiling down fresh cranberries with water and sugar, and then mixing with egg yolks and lemon juice. The filling was tart and sweet and smooth and an incredible color. The crust was made from crushed gingersnap cookies (specifically Trader Joe’s Triple Ginger cookies) and a bit of walnuts. It was sharp and spicy and just the perfect compliment to the filling. Never before has a pie had such strong and distinctive flavors competing between the filling and the crust. I’m not sure we can ever have Thanksgiving without this pie again.
Chocolate Ganache Pie
This pie, chosen by Kate, has been a favorite of the family for Thanksgiving for some time. The filling is two different kinds of chocolate, heavy cream, and eggs. The crust is a chocolate pie crust (basically regular pie crust but with cocoa). Then it’s all topped off by whipped cream and chocolate shavings. It is heavy and rich and you can’t eat a very big slice – or even a very big bite – without gasping for milk. It’s a chocolate lover’s dream.
Atlantic Beach Pie
It looks like the crust reaches higher than the filling, but that’s just more room for whipped cream.
Finally, Shelly chose an Atlantic Beach Pie, which was one of the pies we chose for Thanksgiving last year that inspired us to look for more unusual pies, and led to the pie project. One of the first Pie Project pies in January was a lime version, but the traditional lemon version is better. It’s just about the perfect lemon pie. The filling is essentially the same as a key lime pie, except lemon: lemon juice, sweetened condensed milk, and egg yolks. The crust is saltine crackers, sugar, and butter. We crushed too many crackers and were eating the sweet, buttery, crunchy mixture for a couple of days afterwards. The salty crust is the perfect complement to the sweet, velvety, lemony filling.
Black Friday Pie Party
As has been our tradition for several years now, we once again hosted a Black Friday Pie Party: Bring your leftover pie to share. We had a good crowd show up this year, and we got a lot of good pie out of it. Some of the memorable pies to make an appearance (which don’t count toward the Pie Project because they were made by other families): berry pie, chocolate cheesecake, pecan pumpkin pie, and Costco pumpkin pie (which somehow we ended up keeping nearly the whole pie), sour cream cheesecake, and many more. It was a tasty evening of awesomeness.
It’s Halloween time, so Annie’s variation on her constant chocolate theme was a ghosts-in-the-graveyard pie. She made it up herself. It had an Oreo crust, a filling made of chocolate pudding mixed with whipped cream, and then more crushed Oreos on top (to look like the dirt of a graveyard) and marshmallows on toothpicks to represent ghosts. They might or might not have looked more like snowmen than ghosts, but the effect was there.
Ooh, spooky!
With all those Oreos, it couldn’t possibly be bad, right? Annie believes that it was one of her best pies this year, even if it was one of the simplest. She also thinks that the so-called snowmen look like ghosts and they were the best she could do. Mom wouldn’t let her use the big marshmallows.
It’s kind of amazing it’s taken Annie this long to choose a chocolate mint ice cream pie. It’s a variation on her theme of chocolate at all costs, she loves mint chip ice cream, and summer is now over so ice cream pies are on the way out. We used Tillamook mint chip ice cream, which is the best – they actually make it taste better by refusing to dye it some unnatural green color. Oreo crust, hot fudge layer on top of the ice cream, whipped cream on top of that, and chopped mint chips (appropriately green) to make it look awesome. Everyone wished their piece was a little bigger.
Leave it to Annie to spark a controversy. For generations, mankind has pondered the question “Is cheesecake pie?” Wars have been fought over the answer. Philosophers have written treatises. Families have been torn apart. Would our family be next?
Of course not. It’s obvious that cheesecake is pie. The fundamental characteristics of pie are: 1) crust, 2) filling, and 3) circular shape. Cheesecake meets all of these criteria easily. Those who espouse the position that cheesecake is not pie (of whom there is at least one vocal advocate in our family, but she’s not writing this blog post) can only point to the word “cake” inside the word “cheesecake,” but just because that word is there doesn’t make cheesecake cake. After all, a starfish is not a fish. Tidal waves have nothing to do with tides. And grape-nuts contain neither grapes nor nuts. It’s a misnomer.
Annie’s Thin Mint Brownie Cheesecake (ignore the additional “cake” in the title at the link) pushed the envelope for sure, however. The “crust” was a layer of brownie on the bottom of a springform pan, and didn’t come up around the sides. But honestly, it’s not entirely clear that it was a cheesecake: the filling was basically cream cheese, cool whip, mint extract, and chopped Thin Mint cookies. It was too light and fluffy, didn’t contain eggs, and wasn’t baked. Yeah, people talk about “no-bake cheesecake,” but is that really a thing?
I mean, it’s sitting right there on the… er, the pie stand!
Regardless of whether it was cheesecake, and regardless of whether it was pie, it was indisputably delicious. Shelly isn’t a big mint fan, but she still finished her piece. The brownie wouldn’t have been anything to write home about by itself, but with the minty [filling? topping? icing? cheesecake?] and the chocolate ganache, it was a very solid base for a great pie. Yes, pie.
Usually for Fathers’ Day, the girls give Matt a box of Whoppers candy. They are one of his favorites. So in honor of that fact, Annie chose for Fathers’ Day a Whopper-based pie: the Chocolate Malt Shoppe Pie. The crust was made from chocolate graham crackers, which was surprisingly different from an Oreo crust – less sweet, and a bit softer. The filling gave Shelly and Annie trouble – it involved melted chocolate, whipped cream, malt powder, and cream cheese, all combined at different times and at different temperatures, and frankly, it looked like it was going to be a soupy, lumpy mess. But they whipped it a bit more and added some cornstarch to ensure thickening, and it turned out really nicely. Then just some whipped cream and chopped Whoppers on top. For the final touch, Shelly found some Malted Moo Shake ice cream from Tillamook, which went really well with it on a nice summer evening. The pie was just subtly malty, not too overwhelming. It got mixed reviews from the family. Matt thought it was one of the better chocolatey pies we’ve had. Annie loved it too. But Ellie and Leah didn’t finish their pieces, and Kate wasn’t too impressed. Well, I guess on Annie’s pie week and on Fathers’ Day, Annie and Matt are the only ones who need to be impressed.
Matt’s new philosophy is that, since he only gets to pick the pie every six weeks, he can manipulate the kids into picking pies that he wants if he suggests to them pies that they would like. Then they think it’s their idea, but Matt still gets the pie. The first successful implementation of this strategy was this week’s Chocolate Strawberry Oasis Pie, “chosen” by Annie.
The Oreo crust has not just butter, but melted bittersweet chocolate holding it together. The filling is a thick pudding, with egg yolks, sugar, cocoa, ginger, nutmeg, milk, and more bittersweet chocolate. Lining the bottom of the pie is a layer of halved strawberries (though we left a wedge without strawberries to accommodate Shelly).
The general consensus was that although the flavor was great, and the chocolate and strawberries went well together, the filling was a little TOO stiff. It detached from the crust and the strawberries easily. Maybe a little less egg yolk next time? Who cares? The pie was tasty and awesome, even if its texture was a little off.
This week Annie was up again. She decided to combine two things she loves – cookies and brownies! – to make a brookie pie. It’s a chocolate chip cookie crust with a brownie filling. The brownie portion of this pie tasted similar to Kate’s chocolate fudge pie – which means it was really yummy! The challenge with brookies is that cookie batter bakes faster than brownie batter, so the cookie crust was a bit overdone. But it was delicious nonetheless, especially with ice cream and hot fudge. Score for Annie!
Notes: If making this one again, we would consider baking the pie at 325 for a little longer and covering it with foil about 30 minutes in, to see if that would make the cookie crust less overbaked.
Annie loves chocolate. She has had a hard time with the Pie Project when it comes to non-chocolate pies. So she took the opportunity to make up a recipe herself: homemade Oreo crust, chocolate pudding. Bam: pie! No whipped cream, even, for Annie. Just chocolate. The girl knows what she likes.
Notes: The Oreo crust consisted of butter and crushed-up Oreos. She used instant pudding from a box.
The Pie Project 