Category: Leah

Thanksgiving 2019: Six Pies

November 28, 2019

The pies of Thanksgiving 2019

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.

Cereal Killer Pie

November 24, 2019

Apparently Leah has decided that she has to do weird pies. We made a lot of suggestions of traditional or only moderately unusual pies, but she wasn’t having any of it. Till she found a suggestion for Cereal Killer Pie. Perhaps it’s a “killer pie” made with cereal? Leah was all in.

The pie is cream cheese and sour cream based, with Fruity Pebbles mixed in. Frosted Flakes are sprinkled on top for some crunch. And the crust is made of Nilla Wafers. That’s five weeks in a row we’ve had a new crust that we haven’t tried before (cinnamon rolls, waffles, butter flavored shortening, chocolate pie, and now Nilla wafers).

“I look so great in this picture!”

Everyone agreed that the crust was actually the best part. It was a very smooth consistency for a crumb crust, and the flavor wasn’t strong but it was pleasant. The filling was quite tangy with all the cream cheese and sour cream, and that meant that it wasn’t everyone’s favorite. The Fruity Pebbles (and the marshmallows – Leah thought she would pull a fast one on us and get a box of Marshmallow Fruity Pebbles) got a little soggy and limp inside the filling, but they looked great and they did a great job of imparting their fruity flavor to the whole thing. The Frosted Flakes were crunchy and nice – we could have used a few more of them. Definitely points for weirdness.

Now we move into Thanksgiving week. The plan is that each of the six family members gets to pick one pie. It can be, but doesn’t have to be, a repeat of a pie we’ve done before. But will six pies be enough?

Nutella Pie

October 13, 2019

Leah insisted that she only does “weird pies.”  She rejected the idea of something fairly normal, and instead pointed to her successes like the Lucky Charms Pie as her signature style.  So this week was Nutella Pie.  The crust was a batch of separately cooked brownies, pulled out of the brownie pan and pressed into a springform pan.  The filling was Nutella, cream cheese, and heavy whipping cream.  In between was a thin layer of melted chocolate chips.  When her friend Kennedy, who was at our house for a playdate on Saturday, heard what was going down, she insisted that her family invite us over for dinner on Sunday so she could have some.  And so it was.

It was loved by all, though different parts of it were loved differently.  Some people loved the hard chocolate layer between the crust and the filling.  Others (kids in particular) found that it made it difficult to break a piece off with a plastic fork.  The brownie crust was a surprising success, though it was rather soft.  The filling was a bit soft as well, though whether that was a feature or a bug was debatable.  Some thought that it could have used some stronger hazenut (Nutella) flavor – it was a bit overpowering with the chocolate.  Maybe it wasn’t quite as weird as Lucky Charms Pie, but it will go down as a big success.

S’more S’mores Pie

September 1, 2019

Again, due to lots of guests, we got a second pie (at this rate, we’re going to finish the year with a lot more than 52 pies – we’re actually almost there!). Leah and Shelly kind of collaborated on the choice for this one: a different kind of S’mores pie than the one Shelly made a few weeks ago.

Note the marshmallow ooze.

The crust was more of a graham-infused pie crust than it was a traditional graham-cracker crust. There’s other stuff in there: flour, egg, butter, sugar, vanilla. Then you add marshmallow creme and chocolate, and then a top crust. A weird thing happened that didn’t seem like it should have, based on the online recipe: during baking, the marshmallow creme seeped up through the top crust, turning it into a soft, marshmallowy gooiness. “Gooey” is the best word for this pie. When you cut a slice and lift it out of the pan, long, sticky strings of marshmallow resist your efforts, trying to keep the slice at home. The three main flavors (graham, marshmallow, and chocolate) really meld together. It was a hit.

Butterfinger Pie

September 1, 2019

Leah was thisclose to choosing a Nutella pie this week, which everyone was looking forward to. But at the last minute, she swerved and went for a Butterfinger pie. Leah is the queen of choosing a sugary treat that she loves, and adding the word “pie” after it.

That’s what crushed-up Butterfingers look like.

The pie was a pretty basic cream cheese pie, but with some peanut butter to enhance the Butterfinger flavor, and with crushed-up Butterfingers inside and out. We had the missionaries over for dinner and one of them declared “I think this is the best pie I’ve had in my life.” The pie was indeed good – just about everyone agreed it exceeded expectations. But Shelly and Matt chalked up the Elder’s comment to the fact that he hasn’t been around very long and hasn’t tried very many pies.

Donut Pie

July 21, 2019

Leah originally had a tough time deciding what kind of pie to make this week.  Matt was trying to push her toward a raspberry pie, and the others were pushing for chocolate.  But then we remembered that this was the week we were having our friends the Clarks over for the weekend, and they (one of them in particular) are a little obsessed with donuts.  So Leah chose Donut Pie.

The concept is pretty simple:  Regular pie crust (we’ve kind of been honing in on a recipe with both butter and shortening in it) with a pile of glazed donut holes, with a bit of a buttery mixture baked around it, covered in glaze.  Because this was Leah’s pie, the glaze had to be blue.  With sprinkles.

There was a hint of cinnamon in the mixture, but mostly it tasted like a bunch of donut holes.  Not a bad thing to put in your mouth. Not bad at all.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough “Ice Cream” Pie

June 9, 2019

When you think about it, it’s actually kind of amazing that Leah waited until halfway through the Year of Pie before she picked a pie featuring chocolate chip cookie dough. Her favorite ice cream is cookie dough ice cream, and she and Annie discovered an egg-free cookie dough recipe a while back, and every so often one of them has just made a big bowl of cookie dough balls. This pie featured just such cookie dough balls both on top and in the middle of the creamy filling. The online recipe we found uses the term “ice cream” in the title, but there is no ice cream in this pie – it’s cream cheese, sugars, and Cool Whip, with chocolate chips and dough balls. Then it’s served from the freezer. We took this to the home of some friends for dinner, and it was pretty much gone before we left. One of the friends’ kids said, “This is the best pie I have ever had in my life!”

Lucky Charms Pie

April 28, 2019

Leah went crazy this week and decided to make a Lucky Charms pie.  Yes, there is such a thing as Lucky Charms pie.  The crust is made from crushed up cereal pieces.  The filling is cream cheese and marshmallows, divided into rainbow stripes.  Then all the marshmallows in the cereal box on top.  There’s an entire box of Lucky Charms in this pie, plus a bunch more stuff!

The pie was surprisingly tasty.  The kids enjoyed eating off all of the marshmallows (when they left the room, there was still some pie left on the serving dish, but there were no marshmallows on top of it).  The filling was better than expected, and the colors matched the marshmallow colors just right.  We all gave it a thumbs up.

Oreo Cream Pie

March 17, 2019

Leah, who has traditionally sided a little more with the fruit-pie-lovers in our family than the chocolate-pie-lovers, broke ranks this week and made an Oreo Cream Pie. 36 Oreos were used in the crust, along with 12 more for the filling (also cream cheese and heavy cream). It was just the right cookie-to-cream ratio, and very fluffy. This is one the whole family really enjoyed.