Lemon Curd Pie

This very, very lemony pie was a quick, spring-y dessert for Easter Sunday. It comes together so easily and with ingredients that I usually have in the pantry, so I'm sure I will be making it a few more times this spring and summer. The berries really sweeten up the tartness of the lemon, so next time I will probably cover the whole pie with berries.

Happy Spring!


Lemon Curd Pie
Adapted from Gourmet, May 2008

Ingredients:
Crust
7 (5"X2 1/2" graham crackers, broken into small pieces
3/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

Lemon Curd
3-6 large lemons (depends on how much juice they make)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch
2 whole large eggs plus 2 large yolks
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tbs. fruity olive oil

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in middle. Butter a 9 inch pie plate.
-Pulse almonds in a food processor until finely chopped. Add graham crackers and sugar and pulse until they are a fine crumb.
-Transfer crumb mixture to a bowl and mix with melted butter.
-Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and side of pie plate.
-Bake until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool completely.
- Grate enough zest from lemons to measure 1 tablespoon, then squeeze 3/4 cup juice from lemons.
-Whisk together lemon zest and juice, sugar, cornstarch, whole eggs, and yolks in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Boil, whisking, 2 minutes.
-Remove from heat and whisk in butter and oil until smooth.
-Pour the lemon curd into the pie crust. Top with berries and serve with fresh whipped cream.

Key Lime Pie

I know I've said this a million times (or maybe five), but I'm not much of a dessert person. So when I was having people over for dinner Saturday night, I let my friend Jeff who was visiting from out of town decide what to make for dessert. He immediately suggested key lime pie, and luckily I had just noticed a recipe in this month's Gourmet magazine. Unluckily, it required us squeezing 2 lbs. of itty bitty limes. And by "us" I mean Jeff and his girlfriend Kat. I delegated that task. I'm a good kitchen manager.

Other than the lime squeezing, the pie came together pretty easily. Since it has to chill for eight hours, it can be made well ahead of dinner, so it's not in the way while everything else is cooking. The flavor was great--really, really tart. I liked the almonds in the graham cracker crust. They added a nice crunchy texture. I served the pie with homemade slightly sweetened whipped cream, which I highly recommend to balance out the tartness of the pie. I wouldn't have been able to eat the pie by itself, and I like sour things. Next time I think I will add a blackberry puree drizzle to compliment the lime too.

Key Lime Pie
Adapted from Gourmet, March 2009, originally from Town Hall Restaurant, San Francisco

Ingredients:
7 (5"X2 1/2" graham crackers, broken into small pieces
3/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

2 (14 oz.) cans sweetened condensed milk
zest of 2 key limes, grated on a microplane
1 cup fresh key lime juice (from about 2 lbs. fresh key limes)
4 large egg yolks
2 drops green food coloring for color (optional)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in middle. Butter a 9 inch pie plate.
-Pulse almonds in a food processor until finely chopped. Add graham crackers and sugar and pulse until they are a fine crumb.
-Transfer crumb mixture to a bowl and mix with melted butter.
-Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and side of pie plate.
-Bake until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool completely. (Leave the oven on.)
-Gently whisk together filling ingredients (sweetened condensed milk, lime zest, lime juice, egg yolks, and food coloring, if using) in a medium bowl until smooth and pour into cooled crust.
-Bake 15 to 20 minutes until just set in center. (It will still appear jiggly, the filling will set as it cools.)
-Cool completely on rack, then chill pie loosely covered in the refrigerator at least 8 hours.

Note: Pie can be chilled up to 2 days.

Cran-Apple Pie...Better Than Raisin

It's really all in the title, everything you need to know.

This is my replacement for that goofy raisin pie on my original Thanksgiving menu that turned out to be such a dud. But this pie wasn't just better than the raisin pie, it was really great, in my humble opinion. I love the slight sweetness and the tangy tartness in this pie. I like apple pie by itself, but the addition of the fresh cranberries made this a much more interesting dessert with a more complex flavor. I did use the pie crust recipe from the raisin pie though, and it was nice and flaky.

I have been using fresh cranberries so much lately, I don't know what I'm going to do when they disappear from the markets. I think I might have to stock up on them and freeze them to make them last longer!

Cran-Apple Pie
Makes 1 standard pie

Ingredients:
2 1⁄2 cups flour
1⁄2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. sugar+ extra for the top
1⁄2 lb. chilled butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup ice cold water
4 cups tart apples, cored and sliced (about 5 medium apples)
1 cup fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbs. orange juice
2 tbs. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg white

Directions:
-Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Cut the chilled butter into very small pieces and add to flour mixture. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or two knives until the butter is in pieces the size of peas. Add ice-cold water to the mixture a few tablespoons at a time until the dough comes together. Form the dough into two balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for at least two hours.
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
-Combine apples, cranberries, sugar, orange juice, cornstarch cinnamon and nutmeg, and toss until combined.
-Roll out each piece of dough separately. (This is easier between two pieces of parchment paper.)
-Place the first piece of dough in the pie dish, pour in the fillings. Cover the top of the pie with the second piece of dough and seal the edges. Cut four vent holes in the top of the pie. Place the pie on a cookie sheet to catch any overflow from the pie.
-Brush the top 0f the pie with the egg white and then sprinkle with sugar.
-Bake for 45 minutes. Cover the crust with foil if it starts to get too dark.

NOTE:For a larger, deep dish pie multiply the recipe by 1.5 and bake covered with foil for 30 minutes, then uncovered for 30 minutes more.

They might have had a point when they said to test it.

I told Nic I was making raisin pie for Thanksgiving. He said that sounded horrible. I told my mom I was making raisin pie for Thanksgiving. She said that sounded horrible. And that no one likes raisins.

I tried to argue the point that the pie was actually made from white raisins, which are not the same at all, but my ever-skeptical cooking advisers were having none of it. I have had this raisin pie recipe bookmarked for more than a month because it just sounded so cool. I mean, have you ever had raisin pie? I didn't think so. I could make pumpkin pie sure, but no one is going to look at a pumpkin pie and go, wow how unexpected. Obviously I was not going to abandon the raisin pie idea without a fight. And fight I did. By baking a test pie Saturday night.

The good news is raisin pie is not awful. The bad news is, it's not exactly a home run either. The main problem for me was that it was incredibly, incredibly sweet. Kind of like pecan pie, which is also too sweet in my opinion. I think that the pie would benefit from about a half cup less sugar than the recipe calls for and maybe some cranberries thrown in to make it more tart, say a half a cup or so. My friend Claire, who graciously agreed to participate in the taste test, suggested serving it with vanilla ice cream to break up the strong flavor.

The changes would make it better, but the thing is, eating raisin pie is also just kind of strange. I can't quite wrap my mind around it. I think it's the texture that's strange. It's like chewing on handfuls of raisins straight from the box. So basically I'm going to make a different pie for Thanksgiving. It won't be pumpkin, but it probably won't be as far out as raisin either.

O well, at least I got a great pie crust recipe out of it! If nothing else, check out the recipe for the crust, which is enough for a top and a bottom crust. Instead of refrigerating the crust for an hour or more, ever impatient, I put it in the freezer for 45 minutes and that worked great.

In case you missed it, the recipe for the raisin pie is here. I switched pecans for the walnuts, but other than that I made it the same. If you make it with any of the above recommendations let me know. But I'm guessing after my review, not many people are going to run to the grocery store to pick up the white raisins to make this.