Thin Mint Brownie Cheesecake

July 28, 2019

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.

Honey Lavender Pie

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!

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.

Cookie Dough Pie

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.

Cherry Pie

July 9, 2019

We were driving home from Utah for Matt’s week, but fortunately, he snagged some cherries from his dad’s cherry tree and brought them home.  There weren’t quite enough, though, so we bought some more from the store, and Matt made it during the week.

The biggest accomplishment here was that we finally got our first lattice-top pie of the year. Shelly said, “Boy, those lattice strips are pretty wide.” Matt responded, “Well, this was my first try – I wanted to have fewer strips!” It turned out lovely.

Of course, no one ate it. Our family is made up of weirdos who refuse to even try yummy fruit pies. Ellie had a small piece, but the rest of the job was left to Matt.

Frankly, it could have been better. The recipe we used called for vanilla and almond extract, and next time we should omit that. The extracts gave it a kind of artificial taste. Though there wasn’t any chocolate in this pie, it reminded Matt of a cherry chocolate, with cherries and that liqueur goop around it that tastes a little funny, except not as sugary. And it was really watery and runny – we had to drain the pie before slicing, and even then there was a lot of liquid. Perhaps more cornstarch or less juicy cherries. But the crust was fabulous and it was still pretty darn good.

Chocolate Fudge Pie II

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.

S’mores Pie

June 23, 2019

Early on in the year Shelly knew she wanted to make a S’mores Pie, but she felt she needed to wait until the summer to do it. She looked at several different recipes with several different approaches. Some had a chocolate pudding base, others had a richer ganache. Some used real marshmallows, others used marshmallow fluff. Some of them didn’t even use a graham cracker crust. She finally found a recipe that was almost perfect. But it used biscoff cookies for the crust. The horror! So we switched out the crust of this recipe with a graham cracker crust and it was perfect.

It had all the components of a fabulous s’more: graham cracker crust, salted chocolate ganache filling, and homemade marshmallow fluff. We even borrowed a kitchen torch from a friend to make it toasty on top.

If making this recipe again, we would use a little bit less salt in the filling, and cut the marshmallow fluff in half.

We we had to have two pies this day because we had two families over for dinner and we were going to be in Utah on Shelly’s actual week. But the s’mores pie was a huge hit.

Peach Crumble Pie

June 23, 2019

Ellie (like Matt) has been waiting for summer to arrive so she could make a good old-fashioned peach pie. Once again, we simply found a recipe online, but we went ahead and used this recipe’s crust as well, which was a little different. The crust uses both shortening and butter, which resulted in a very flaky, tasty crust. The excess dough didn’t last till the pie made it out of the oven.

The peaches were tender, the crumble on top was lovely (we doubled the crumble and had a little left over for snacking), and even though it was competing with the S’mores Pie, half of it got eaten. Cinnamon was present in this pie, since it was an Ellie pie, but it was more brown sugary than cinnamony. It was even better the next day as breakfast.

Chocolate Malt Shoppe Pie

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.