Hey guys. I am back from my grand adventure. Spent two amazing weeks in Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Cape Town. Logged lots of hours on planes, but it was worth it. Was finally able to do the one and only thing on my bucket list: see a great white shark in person. And boy, did they put on a show for me! Flying out of the water, chasing seals, and showing off around the shark cage. Beautiful animals! The trip only deepened my love for them and filled me with a desire to see more.
Settled back in at home, but didn’t quite complete this months baking challenge, which was pie. I decided I’d still make a pie, but was missing one or more ingredients from the three different recipes that was to be made. Therefore I thawed out some leftover pie dough I made a month ago and whipped up a delicious butterscotch and meringue pie, which I had all the ingredients for.
Even recipes I’ve made before can turn out differently each time. Butterscotch seems to be a hit or miss for me. I added an extra tablespoon of cornstarch and an extra egg yolk to try and get a more solid pudding since I had 1% milk, not whole milk. But it turned out a bit runny still. The meringue didn’t help when it weeped all over the pudding. Damn meringue! Just goes to show that sometimes you should take the extra step and make a tried and true recipe than the quick and simple one. Meringue is so easy yet so finicky!
The pie dough gave me more trouble. I didn’t have pie weights or dry beans so I just put a mixing bowl on top of the crust when blind baking. It didn’t work. I had to take it off and then the crust bubbled up and the edges shrunk. It was unusable. Thankfully I had a graham cracker crust in my pantry and used that instead. But I didn’t completely scrap my homemade crust. I cut out a couple small circles, put them in the bottom of espresso cups, then filled those with pudding and meringue for mini desserts. Worked well.
In conclusion, pie is not my friend. I’ve known it for some time now. But we get along as best as we can.
In other news, I’m sad to report that Paddy (my sour dough starter) has left this world. I was a bad mom and let him become overrun by mold. I tried to resuscitate him, but it was too late. He was a year and a half.
Rachael from pizzarossa was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies! There’s nothing like pie!
All Things Crafty 