August 26, 2019
Kate kind of got short-changed. For her pie week, we were on vacation in Florida. We had a full kitchen, but we didn’t have the tools or ingredients to make a pie, so we went to the local Wal-Mart and told her to pick a pie from the freezer section. She picked a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup pie. We thawed it and served it and though admittedly it might have been a bit smaller than a normal pie from home, it was probably gone faster than any pie we’ve had all year.
August 11, 2019
Shelly decided that she deserved two pies this week, so one of them naturally was a chocolate peanut butter pie. Since it’s summer, it was chocolate peanut butter ice cream. That got whipped together with Cool Whip and swirled with chocolate syrup and topped with chopped peanut butter cups. The special part was the crust: it was made from crushed sugar ice cream cones.
The crust didn’t turn out as great as we thought it would. It was hard to cut, but then it was crumbly when we ate it. Perhaps it was because it was frozen, or maybe it needed more butter to hold it together.
Overall, this was a hit, especially with the kids. But next time, we should skip the ice cream cone crust and just stick with a standard cookie or graham cracker crust.
July 21, 2019
This was a bonus pie, pushed for by Matt and Ellie, since our friends the Clarks were in town. Where the Donut Pie appealed to everyone’s sweetest, basest dessert instincts, the Honey Lavender Pie was a bit more highbrow.
The previous weekend we had journeyed to Sequim, Washington – the self-proclaimed Lavender Capital of North America. While our main purpose there was to meet the waving bears (which we did, and it was awesome), we also stopped at a lavender farm selling you-pick lavender for $5 a bunch. We collected about as much as we thought we would need for a pie, but when we brought it to the counter to pay, they said that wasn’t nearly a “bunch,” so we could either go pick more or have that much for free. “I prefer free,” Matt said cautiously. And so it was.
The pie had a lot of honey and a lot of eggs, making it very sweet, and giving it a flan-like texture. The lavender is steeped in cream until it absorbs the essence of the flowers. The result is a flavor that is very strong in both honey and lavender. Our friends, upon eating it, said, “I’m burping up lavender.” And, “What if you took a bubble bath and ate a slice of this pie in the bubble bath? It would be the full lavender experience: lavender within, lavender without!” Ellie said she couldn’t taste the lavender, but the rest of us felt it was overpowering. Shelly and the girls didn’t particularly care for it, but others liked it, and no one hated it. The pie was definitely better the next day after it had thoroughly chilled. A fantastic, unusual summertime pie that we wouldn’t have tried if it weren’t for the Pie Project!
July 14, 2019
A few weeks ago, Leah tried a cookie dough pie, but this time Kate wanted to go all-out with the cookie dough. Instead of a bunch of cookie dough balls in a creamy filling, Kate’s cookie dough pie was basically one big disc of cookie dough. With a chocolate ganache topping. We used the rest of the chocolate graham crackers for the crust, but didn’t have quite as many of them as we needed, so we used a few regular graham crackers mixed in. It actually gave the crust a salt-and-pepper look that went very well with the dark-and-light brown of the cookie dough, and it tasted great. The pie was very sweet, but it was enjoyed by all.
June 26, 2019
As we have done the Pie Project, many have asked what our favorite pie has been. Kate’s chocolate fudge pie from March is always up there in the rankings. Our friend Diana loves chocolate lava cake, so we knew we wanted to make a chocolate fudge pie (which resembles lava cake) for her birthday. It turned out just as well the second time.
If you’re counting, yes, that made four pies in five days. We’re not obsessed or anything.
June 16, 2019
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.
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!”
May 19, 2019
To the surprise of no one, Shelly once again went with a chocolate-cream-based pie. This time, it was officially called a Chocolate Truffle Pie though there were no actual truffles harmed in the making of the pie. The crust was Shelly’s creation: she used a box of Girl Scout Do-Si-Do shortbread cookies. Then there was a chocolate ganache layer (Shelly’s specialty), and then a creamy chocolate layer, and then whipped cream. The cookie crust gave it a bit of crunch and maybe even a slight saltiness that complimented the creamy chocolate well.
May 5, 2019
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.
April 21, 2019
For the main pie for Easter, Kate chose a recipe Shelly found online. The main feature was a rice krispie crust, with a chocolate pudding filling, and various Easter candies on top. It was so good. Shelly was impressed that she was able to make the chocolate pudding on the stovetop, and it came out perfectly. Our crust was a little hard, possibly because we had to chill the pie in the fridge to get the pudding to set up, or possibly because we used some old marshmallows (or not enough marshmallows). Everyone loved the Easter pie!
The Pie Project 