pie

real pumpkin pie

butter 1-2 hours, for sharing, pie, under 30 minutes 0 Comment

I got my hands on some pumpkins much too early for a traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, but… whatever! Let’s do it anyway! Also I forgot to take process pictures because I’m an amateur blogger now 🙁 Oh well.

Cut pumpkin(s) in half, remove seeds, and roast flat-side-down for about 20 minutes in a 400 deg oven, until soft. Let cool.

Separate flesh from skin and mash with a fork. Measure out filling weight needed.

7 oz pumpkin (roasted)
7 oz sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg
big dash cinnamon
small dash nutmet
small dash allspice
small amount grated fresh or powdered ginger

Mix all ingredients together until uniform. Pour into par-baked pie pan(s).

Bake at 400 deg for 5 minutes, then turn oven down to 350 deg for remaining bake time (ranges from 20~40 additional minutes). If crust is getting too toasty, tent with foil.

junior’s cheesecake

butter half day, overnight, pie , , , , 2 Comments

DSCF2824Well, to be more specific: Junior’s White Chocolate & Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake with Junior’s Sponge Cake Crust. This is the longest recipe I’ve logged on Butter.City so far. It’s probably the longest a recipe can be in its entirety before I lose interest and. I guess it didn’t help that I made the full portion of this cheesecake, which is a lot of cheesecake. Volumes were much larger than typical for me. But you know, I did it, with just a teeny tiny snafu (overbaked the cheesecake – but luckily no burnt aroma). If you are up for a challenge, this cheesecake was definitely pretty delicious. It was on the sweet side though, I’d probably take out a third of the sugar next time.

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unsuccessful – (key) lime pie

butter pie, unsuccessful attempt :( 0 Comment

I got limes from Costco…. which means I literally still have 20 limes in my refrigerator. What to do with them other than bake?

Alas, my first attempt at a (key) lime pie was unsuccessful, because of a couple of reasons. I followed All Recipe’s highly rated recipe, but divided by 3. Used 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs + 2 Tbsp butter for a homemade crust. Zest and juice from 3 limes. Amount was perfect for one 6″ pie pan, which fits in my toaster oven. But…

  1. Mixing order was wrong, so sour cream was clumpy and didn’t mix in well. Visually not pretty.
  2. I didn’t have the full amount of condensed milk, so I decided to sub part of it for brown sugar. Which visually made it into a brownish poop pie instead of a nice tinted lime pie. Also the condensed milk gives this pie its texture, I think, so… yeah.
  3. I didn’t want to get my hands dirty so I didn’t press the graham cracker well, which led to a soggy crust.

No picture. Too ugly! Just trust me.

Taste-wise, the pie turned out ok. Next time I’ll make sure I have enough condensed milk before starting the recipe..

fresh blueberry pie

butter 1-2 hours, pie, under 30 minutes , , 1 Comment

DSCF2526Berry season is among us!!! Funny thing is, I never used to like blueberries, and now I blink and my snack bowl is empty. I think of them as the most superior among all berries, perhaps even higher-rated than strawberries, because they don’t have leaves to cut off. Rinse and consume, so simple and delicious. But here’s another option: put in something like 10 minutes of effort and come out with this fresh blueberry pie.
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lemon meringue tarts

butter for sharing, half day, pie 2 Comments

DSC_6116The best thing about having a sister is being able to share everything. Especially when one sister only likes orange sour patch kids, and the other sister prefers green. Even more when one sister loves the sweet meringue on a lemon meringue pie, and the other prefers the lemon curd and crust.

So ever since the beginning, meringue – oops, I mean lemon meringue pie – has been a part of my life. And now, in tart form, it will never ever leave.

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stonefruit piette

butter for sharing, half day, pie , 0 Comment

DSC_6148The thing about fruit pies is that you’ve got to get the right ratio of crust to fruit. Too much crust isn’t really a problem I guess, because everyone loves a good pie crust. But too much fruit and you’ll be drowning in sad bites of soggy fruit without any crunchy crust to go with. That’s one of the reasons why these small 6″ pie pans work so well – the smaller volume of fruit is guaranteed to not overwhelm the crust.
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pie crust

butter a test, pie, reference, under 30 minutes 1 Comment

DSC_6062I’ve been using my trusty food processor to make pie crusts for a couple years now, and love how easy and quick it is. But there were always lingering questions at the back of my mind – is an OG pastry blender better? Does a food processor over-blend? Could my pie crusts go from consistently delicious to consistently WOW???

I needed the answers. So I staged a comparison test.

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