Pie Trials
I just have to share this experience. I signed up for a Pie-Off at work. It’s taking place on Monday. All week I’ve been obsessing over what pies I am going to enter. The rules are quite simple. We can only enter 2 pies and they have to be in a pie pan. Other than that, it’s whatever we want.
The judging categories are: Best Overall, Most Colorful, Most Creative, Best Traditional, Best Combo (ie with ice cream). Keep in mind I’m not really a pie girl. I made these lemon meringue cup-pies, but other than that, I stick with other baked goods. But I do love a challenge, so here I am…
Tonight I wanted to make some trial pies. But Hubby and I don’t need two pies in the house. And I don’t want to send a pie to work with a piece or two cut out of it. I have actually never eaten a pear (shocking, I know!) but this pear-cranberry pie from Katie looked so festive and I thought I might have a shot at Most Colorful with it. The other pie I wanted to try is from Dorie Greenspans “Baking From My Home to Yours” as made famous by the TWD group. (BTW, I grabbed the cookbook at TJMaxx for $24 and man it’s HEAVY! I didn’t realize it was so big!). So the other pie is called Depths-of-Fall Butternut Squash Pie. It has butternut squash, pears, dried cranberries and walnuts in it. And the squash isn’t pureed like a pumpkin pie, it’s left in chunks. This intrigued me.
So back to tonight. I wanted to make 2 pies without having 2 pies at the end of the night. Then I got this crazy idea to make them both in the same pan. Yep, you read right. In the same pan. The squash pie needed a double crust and the pear pie is open on the top. So I used two crusts and just folded one in half for the squash pie and then cut the other crust in half for the pear pie. The pictures show it better…
This is the filling for the Dorie Pie. Let me tell you – I wanted to eat this with a spoon. But I decided I should bake the pie as planned.
This is the pear filling. Quite simple and tasty. I couldn’t get it all to fit in the 1/2 pie pan so I ate the rest. Mmmm. I had no idea I liked pears so much.
Here’s the Dorie pie in it’s crust. As you can see, it’s one pie crust (yes, I used store bought for tonight – I’ll be making homemade for Monday). I just folded the top over the filling and crimped with a fork.
Here’s the pie after I crimped the edge of the Dorie pie. I left enough pie for the pear pie to have crust on all sides so the juices wouldn’t get mixed into the Dorie pie.
Here’s the other half of the pear pie crust. I used some mini leaf cookie cutters to cut out the decorations just like Katie.
This is the pie as it looked before it went in the oven. As you can see, the pear half of the pie is quite full. One difficult thing about this project is the cooking time/temp. One said 400 and one said 375. I heated my oven to about 385 and threw it in. The pear pie required being loosely covered with foil.
I love frozen Thin Mints so I totally get why these are good frozen! Looks fantastic!
Ooh… I love the sound of these. If I don’t end up making them soon, I definitely will keep them in mind for Christmas cookies!
Just when I thought there wasn’t another way to enjoy a peppermint patty, you post this. Love it! They’re definitely one of my favorite candies.
I MADE HOMEMADE PEPPERMINT PATTIES WHEN I WAS LITTLE, THEY WERE A CHRISTMAS TRADITION! I REFUSE TO DO IT ANYMORE THOUGH, THE PATTIES ALWAYS FELL APART ON ME WHEN I DIPPED THEM.
THESE COOKIES LOOK DELICIOUS. I WOULD TOTALLY BE ON BOARD WITH THAT 😀
Oh YUMMY! I must make these ASAP!
These sound AWESOME! I love peppermint patty’s.
Oh yum! Peppermint Patties are my mom’s absolute favorite! I am totally making these next time I go hojme-they even look like giant patties!
these cookies looks so tasty! I`d like to have some in front of me 🙂
THese look AMAZING! My bf would totally love these! 🙂
I just wanted to say that I’ve been a silent reader for a long time and you are my go to source whenever I need an impressive dessert for a party or just when I’m craving something sweet. Every single recipe has turned out amazing! Thank you!
These look great! My high school vice principal loved peppermint patties! heh
mmm what else is in that freezer of yours? I want to come raid it!
I want! Oh my!
I visited my cousin today and she had made these cookies. She shared them with us and they were the bomb! Be careful because they are highly addictive! Rich but yummy! I will be making them.