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 am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Yum. I bet your kitchen smelled amazing while these were baking!
Awesome! These are sooooo something I would love. I’m also totally with you on the whole bar cookie thing. It’s so easy to just do one thing and then lounge until they done.
So many bloggers are making cookie bars and blondies these days. I’ve tried the snickerdoodle blondies, and they are so good!!! YUM! Lovely photos!
We do love Snickerdoodles! I have never made a good blondie and have not made many bar cookes…so it is time to start! Thanks!
~Nancy
We do love Snickerdoodles! I have never made a good blondie and have not made many bar cookes…so it is time to start! Thanks!
~Nancy
mmmm I don’t mind your bar kick one bit! yum!
Yum! What a great idea.
I’ve made been making these for a couple of years. My family and I LOVE them. I was making them so often I pretty much had the recipe memorized! Yours look great! I hope your sister gets a chance to try them sometime.
~ingrid
Btw, anything in the bar form rocks over regular cookies! 🙂
I’m pretty sure I want to leave work immediately and make these!
When I saw these pop up in my google reader yesterday, I made them right away! Mostly because we were snowed in and I had everything on hand. They are so simple, but so wonderful. We loved them! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Glad you like my recipe! 🙂 Gorgeous photos!
I am going to have to try these as I love snickerdoodles and blondies!
Great recipe!
I used it (don’t worry – gave you credit!), and added to it. Check out my More is More Bars (aka Sinckerdoodle Cranberry Chocolate Cheesecake Blondie Bars).
http://eatrunread.blogspot.com/
I made these for my boss’ family (they are having a rough few weeks) and as far as I know they were a hit with the kids! Unfortunately I did not get to try one myself, but they looked delish! Thanks for the recipe!
Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie, so cannot wait to try this recipe!
I made these this weekend and they were so good. So moist and thick and cinnamon sugary!! I posted them on my blog! 🙂
http://ashleyscookingadventures.blogspot.com/2010/03/snickerdoodle-blondies.html
Thanks so much for sharing!
I made these with a slight variation to the size and crust. My roommates and I nearly died when they were in the oven, the smell was incredible. I took a pan to class and they were devoured. I was slightly happy about this because I would have finished them myself!
http://mysceneandherd.blogspot.com/2011/03/snickerdoodle-blondies.html
So glad you enjoyed the recipe.
Pinned this. Made it. LOVED it! Recommended it and have shared the recipe to others! Blogged about how great they are: http://spotofteadesigns.com/2014/04/pinned-recipes-tested-with-reviews/
beantownbaker — April 21st, 2014 @ 5:13 pm
So glad you enjoyed them (and pinned them, and blogged about them!)