Showing posts with label Pies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pies. Show all posts
I think of all the pies in the world, Lemon Pie has to be my absolute favorite kind of pie. I love all pies of course. My whole family is a family of pie lovers.
But if I had to pick one favorite kind it would be a Lemon Pie. In the summer time I favor refrigerated no bake lemon pie recipes.
Recipes like my Old Fashioned Lemon Ice Box Pie, or Lemon Cream Pie are the order of the day. Creamy cool pies that you make with a crumb crust and then just refrigerate.
No fuss no muss. No heating up of the kitchen. Mind you, now that I live on my own, unless I am having company, there is just too much pie for one person in one of those!
I have a healthy appetite, but that's still far too much pie. What to do, what to do . . .
There was nothing for it but to create a small version of a refrigerated lemon pie. One that is perfectly sized for two. I didn't want to use sweetened condensed milk however.
Whilst I do love eagle brand lemon pie, I am quite sure I couldn't find something to do with the remainder of the tin if I made a small batch one of those.
It was time to put on my thinking cap and I think I came up with the perfect solution! This no bake lemon pie recipe is perfectly sized for two, but uses no condensed milk at all, also no cream cheese.
You do need some sour cream and lemon curd however. I don't know about you, but those are two ingredients I always have.
Sour cream and lemon curd are store cupboard staples in my house and I can tell you, in all honesty, I have never ever had to throw any of them away.
They always get used up. Always. You can make your own Lemon Curd of course, if you want to. I do have a recipe for that here, but any good store brand Lemon Curd will work fine. Today I used President's Choice Lemon Curd.
Normally I would use graham cracker crust for this type of pie. I had bought some ginger snaps a while back however to use in something else, and I thought they would make a perfectly delicious crust for this.
Ginger and lemon are perfect flavor partners. The two go together like peas and carrots!
I have a tiny little pyrex pie plate that my sister gave me. Its only six inches across and is the perfect size for this pie.
Don't worry if you don't have one yourself, you can also make this pie in a small 4 inch square casserole dish, or in two ramekins, or large tart tins. All would work well.
The crust is made pretty much the same way as a regular refrigerated graham cracker pie crust. Its just crushed gingersnaps, a tiny bit of sugar and some melted butter. Easy peasy.
Use a nice, snappy, gingery cookie for it. It took 9 of my cookies to give me the right amount. I used the Purity ones. Nice and tasty!
Its a nice and snappy crust. Crisp and gingery. Just pick a gingersnap that you like, a really crisp one and you can't go wrong.
The filling is basically only two ingredients. Yep, two ingredients!
Just the sour cream and the lemon curd. In equal amounts. Whip the sour cream up a bit and then stir in the curd.
Spoon it into the prepared pie shell, and that's it. Done. You do have to chill it overnight so that it sets up nicely, but for me that isn't a problem. Well . . . a problem I can handle at any rate!
It probably sets up a lot sooner than overnight, truth be told, but I left it overnight to be good and sure. It was perfect.
With only two ingredients such as that, you really want to be sure.
And now you are probably wanting to know what you can do with the rest of your lemon curd, eh? Well, I have several perfect solutions for using it up and every one of them incredibly delicious!!
Lemon Curd Drizzle Cake is a good-un. You just bang everything for this easy cake in a food processor and blitz it. Delicious!
Lemon Curd Cookies are another option. Buttery round cookies with lemon curd centers. Fabulous darlings!
Lemon Curd Shortbread Wedges are another option. With a shortbread cookie base, lemon curd filling and cookie crumble on top.
Lemon Curd Muffins. Tasty muffins swirled with lemon curd.
Bread and Butter Pudding with Lemon Curd and Raisins. Another tasty option.
Squidgy Lemon Cake is a real favorite of mine! It is moist and buttery and stogged full of lemon flavour. That is probably because you dollop big drops of lemon curd all over the top of it and then swirl them in with a skewer. Baked, you top it with a lush lemon glaze icing. Delicious!
Topped with dollops of lightly sweetened whipped cream, and sprinkled with chopped candied ginger, this is a pie you are really going to fall in love with.
Lets face it, why should we suffer because we are only one or two people. We deserve delicious lemon treats as well! And this is, plain and simple . . . one very tasty treat!
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Creamy Lemon Pie for Two
Yield: 2
Prep time: 15 Mininactive time: 12 HourTotal time: 12 H & 15 M
With its crisp gingersnap crust and lush creamy filling, this is a pie to please. Tart, sweet, rich, creamy and no bake!
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 1/2 cup (60g) gingersnap crumbs
- 1 TBS butter, melted
- 1 tsp sugar
For the filling:
- 1/4 cup (30g) dairy sour cream, full fat
- 1/4 cup (55g) good quality lemon curd
To top:
- 1/4 cup (60g) whipping cream, whipped and lightly sweetened
- 1 TBS finely chopped candied ginger
Instructions
- You will need a small pie tin for this (6 inch) or two individual (6 ounce) ramekins. You also need to let this chill overnight.
- Measure the crumbs, sugar and melted butter into a bowl. Combine well together and then press into your pie tin (or ramekins). Place in the refrigerator to chill for 10 minutes.
- Whisk the sour cream until it fluffs up and then whisk in the lemon curd, combing both together completely. Spoon into the chilled crust, cover with some cling film and then place in the refrigerator to chill over night.
- Whip your cream until stiff with a small amount of sugar. Pipe it into rosettes on top of the pie, or simply spread over top of the pie. Sprinkle with the candied ginger. Serve immediately.
Rhubarb Meringue Pie. Just the name is enough to get my taste buds salivating. I love my rhubarb, and I love rhubarb pie, but rhubarb meringue pie, well, it just pushes all of my taste buttons.
The delicious recipe for this tasty rhubarb meringue tart pie I am sharing with you today comes from my big blue binder. It is a recipe I got from my first mother-in-law many, many years ago now. In fact about 47 to be exact! (How did I get to be that old!)
I remember the first time I experienced this pie. It was nothing at all like my mother's rhubarb pie. Mom's was really good, but it was just a normal two crust pie, filled with rhubarb and sugar.
Delicious warm with ice cream. You can find a traditional old fashioned rhubarb pie recipe here on my page. I can warn you now, its very, very good!!
I wasn't sure if I would like Lois's pie. It was so far removed from the pies of my childhood. It took a lot of courage for me to try it. I was a bit squeamish in those days.
I got really brave however, my desire not to hurt anyone's feelings being far greater than my squeamishness. I stuck my fork in and it was pure love at first bite! This was THE most delicious rhubarb pie I had ever eaten!
I have to bake it at least once every year, and I spend the rest of the year just thinking about it. I learned a lot about cooking from Lois.
Lois was a farm wife and she was an excellent cook. She had raised five children and fed a hungry farmer husband for many years, as well as farm hands. There was nothing coming out of her kitchen that wasn't delicious.
She had a huge kitchen garden next to the house and grew most of their vegetables. They also had dairy cows, apple orchards, sheep and chickens. Plus they grew vegetables each year for the local Graves manufacturing plant as well as almost all of the feed for their animals.
A lot of it was good, old fashioned basic cooking, made with wholesome pure and natural ingredients. Economical and meant to use up what was produced on the farm, but she was also not afraid to stretch her boundaries.
She taught me not to be afraid to stretch my boundaries and to try new things, along with plenty of the basics. Her fried potatoes were legendary.
She fried them in rendered salt pork and they were full of flavor and pork scratchins. Delicious! They literally melted in your mouth.
Back in the day a farm wife had to be a good cook. The reliability of your work force depended on the meals you were able to provide the farm hands. If you were a good cook, you never had any trouble getting anyone to work on the farm.
I think I would have liked to be a farmer's wife in some ways, but not in others. She was up at the crack of dawn and worked long hours into the night as she was also the book-keeper for the farms. (They had four.)
It was really hard work from dawn to dusk and not for anyone who had a lazy streak of any kind. You really had to love what you were doing and be ready to get stuck into anything, be it rounding up cows that had gotten up at 3 in the morning, helping the animals to birth, or mucking out the barn.
It is not for the weak of heart! I will just leave it there.
The cooking and gardening part I could easily have handled. Especially the cooking part. As you know it is one of my great loves.
As is this pie. I normally use my butter and lard pastry. Here is the recipe for that. The photo on the recipe is for my Canadian Butter Tarts, which you can find HERE. They are excellent if I don't say so myself!
Butter and lard pastry
Yield: makes 2 nine inch crusts
This is a beautiful pastry. Flaky just right. You can add a touch of sugar to it if you are making a fruit pie.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour (280g)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup butter (76g)
- 1/3 cup lard (or white vegetable shortening) (74g)
- 5 to 6 tablespoons of ice water
Instructions
- Mix flour with salt, and cut in butter and lard, until you have pieces of fat in the flour about the size of peas.
- Add ice water, one TBS at a time, tossing it in with a fork until pastry comes together.
- Form in to a ball and cut in two pieces. Form each into a round flat disc.
- Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Notes:
If using for a sweet pie, add 1 or 2 teaspoons of sugar.)
Normally I would make my own crust, but today I used a frozen crust. I like the Tender Flake Lard Crusts. They taste just like pie crust should. I used another brand a few weeks back and they were horrible. They had a nasty chemical taste.
These ones did not. Normally I have my own pastry frozen in rounds, well wrapped, but on this occasion I didn't and I was in a rush.
This really is a simple pie to make. You use an unbaked 9-inch crust. You will need about 4 sticks of rhubarb for the filling, or 3 if the rhubarb is really large.
You need to cut the rhubarb into 3/4 inch pieces and cover it with boiling water. Leave it to sit for 15 minutes, and then drain it really well.
I think this helps to take some of the sharpness away from the rhubarb, but I am not really sure for certain. I only know it is what Lois did.
Once you have it drained you put it into the crust and then you pour a simple custard mixture over top. This is pretty basic. Its just egg yolks, sugar, flour, melted butter and water.
This gets stirred til smooth and poured over top of the fruit. I use a large measuring cup so that I can get it poured evenly over everything.
Once you have the custard in, you dust the top with cinnamon. I have always wondered by the cinnamon doesn't just get added to the custard, but this is the way its always been done, and why mess with perfection.
Fifteen minutes at a high temperature and half an hour at a lower temperature and your rhubarb custard base is done. Ready to be topped with the meringue that you have made with the whites from the eggs.
I always like to add an extra white so that my meringue is nice and fluffy tall. Did you know that if you haven't got any cream of tartar you can use 1/2 a tsp of lemon juice or white vinegar in it's place? It works a charm.
I like to beat the whites until they form soft peaks and then I slowly start pouring in the sugar in a steady stream until the whites double in volume and become all glossy and stiff. Perfect to mound on top of that baked custard.
Brown in the oven and then try to resist digging into the pie until its completely cooled down. If possible its nice to refrigerate it overnight, as it cuts even nicer, but you need a lot of willpower to do that!!
Did you know if you use a sharp knife and dip your knife into warm water, you get nice slices and the meringue doesn't stick to your knife? Its true.
Enjoy!
Rhubarb Meringue Pie
Yield: Makes one 9-inch pie
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 55 MinTotal time: 1 H & 4 M
This is the MOST delicious rhubarb pie going!
Ingredients
- short-crust pastry for a 9-inch deep dish pie
- 2 to 3 cups of rhubarb, cut into 3/4 inch lengths
- 2 large free range egg yolks
- 2 TBS flour
- 3 TBS water
- 1 cup (195g) granulated sugar (In the UK use castor sugar)
- 4 TBS butter, melted (56g or 2 ounces)
- cinnamon to dust
For the meringue topping:
- 2 large free range egg whites
- 3 TBS granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Instructions
- Place your rhubarb into a bowl. Cover with boiling water and leave to sit for 15 minutes. Drain well.
- Preheat the oven to 425*F/225*C/ gas mark 7.
- Line your pie tin with the pastry, trimming and fluting the edge.
- Whisk together the sugar and flour. Whisk in the melted butter until smooth. Whisk in the beaten egg yolks and the water. The mixture will be fairly runny.
- Place the drained rhubarb into the pie crust. Pour the egg yolk mixture evenly over top. Dust lightly with cinnamon.
- Bake in the center of the oven at 425* for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 325*F/165*C/ gas mark 3 and bake for an additional half an hour. The rhubarb should be soft and the custard set. the pastry should be golden brown.
- Increase the oven temperature to 400*F/200*C/gas mark 6.
- To make the meringue, whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they form soft peaks. Continue to beat, slowly drizzling in the sugar until you have a mixture with stiff, glossy peaks.
- Spoon the meringue on top of the baked rhubarb filling, covering it completely.
- Pop the pie back into the oven and bake for a further 8 to 10 minutes until the meringue is golden brown.
- Remove and cool completely before serving.
- Serve cut into wedges. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator.
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I am sharing a heavenly dessert with you today. Perfect for the upcoming national celebrations which, here in North America, we will be taking note of on both the 1st and the 4th of July. But holidays aside, this fabulously tasty dish is welcome any time and on any occasion!
Berry Angel Pie! What you have here is a really light dessert, which is perfect to serve after a heavy meal or when you have been BBQ-ing.
I have shared a lemon version of this before. You can find that recipe here. It is really lucious. I hope you will forgive me for the bad photography of that one.
It was pretty early in my blogging days and I didn't have a great camera, etc. I have improved a bazillion times since then!
I found myself earlier this week with a quantity of berries that needed using up. I love, LOVE berry season when you can enjoy your fill of fresh berries!
When I was living in the UK, we grew all of our own soft fruit in the garden. We had black currants, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries and gooseberries. I will miss having such an abundance of those little gems.
There is nothing so wonderful as being able to eat soft fruit like that, freshly picked. It just tastes so much better than the super-market stuff.
You never know how long it has taken for that fruit in the shops to get to the supermarket shelves. A lot of it comes from great distances away and it just never tastes that good to me.
These berries came from Ontario and Mexico, so, not quite as good as they will be a bit later on in the season. I saw fresh local strawberries at the farm market behind my house today.
A bit on the pricey side. As the season moves along they will get cheaper. I can't wait! I used to pick tons of strawberries every year when the children were growing up. Most of it got made into jam.
When you have five hungry children to feed, you go through a lot of jam, and strawberry was their favorite! As they got older they would help me pick berries, not their favorite job, but then again, do any children really enjoy this type of chore?
Probably not!
One year when we were visiting my in-laws on the Island, their father took them berry picking and when they got back my MIL let them set up a small stand at the end of the driveway so that they could sell some of their boxes of berries.
They sold every box more than once, lol. My in-laws lived in a community of retired folks.
The old guys were buying boxes of berries and then giving them back to the children so they could sell them again. The kids were amazed!
Most of the time in those days berries would be made into jam, or served as Strawberry Shortcake. Occasionally a strawberry pie would be baked, or a blueberry pie. (My father's favorites!)
Angel Pies are basically composed basically of a sweet meringue crust, which is baked in a moderate oven until golden brown. It is crisp on the outside, but chewy and marshmallow like on the inside.
Onto that goes lightly sweetened whipped cream and on top of that fresh berries
The meringue crust for this version is slightly different than the usual. It contains a small amount of baking powder, which makes it rise nice and tall.
It also has a quantity of broken cookies folded into the meringue before baking. I used custard creams because I was topping it with berries.
I knew that the vanilla like flavor of the custard creams would go very well with the berries. You might think that folding broken cookies into a meringue prior to baking it is an unusual thing, and perhaps it is.
But the end result is a fabulous crust. Crisp on the outside. Billowing and soft on the inside, and studded with these crunchy/chewy bits that become almost like a toffee-like, and yet not. Its hard to describe.
Your family will wonder what it is that is giving it that fabulous texture and flavor. You can't quite put your finger on it. Its just amazing.
I can think of only one word to describe it and it is this. MOREISH!
Combine that with the soft richness of whipped cream. Oh sure you could use frozen whipped if you wanted to and even the lower calorie frozen whipped topping if you are watching your calories.
In fact you could use low sugar, reduced fat cookies in the crust as well. But, I like to keep things as natural as I can.
Processed foods to have their place, but if I can use something natural and pure, I would rather use that.
I also prefer the flavor of real whipped cream over the artificial stuff. I am not even fond of squirty cream that comes out of the can.
I do sweeten the cream a tiny bit. I add about two teaspoons of sugar to it. It just adds a slight hint of sweetness.
I don't sweeten the fruit at all. I just wash it. Dry it. Slice the strawberries and then arrange them on top with the blueberries.
What you have here is a delightful dessert, with a crisp soft marshmallow inside base of a crust filled with toffee-ish bits, combined with rich cream and then tart berries.
Altogether this is incredibly delicious as well as being very simple and easy to make. I think you are going to love this one. I can pretty much guarantee your family will also!
Berry Angel Pie
Yield: 6
Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 45 Min
With its crisp meringue crust this is a real favorite during the berry season!
Ingredients
- 3 large free range egg whites
- 2/3 cup (130g) granulated sugar (in the UK use castor sugar)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 10 custard cream type of cookies/biscuits, coarsely broken into bits
- 1 cup (240ml) whipping cream
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 cup (150g) sliced strawberries
- 1 cup (190g) fresh blueberries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/gas mark 4. Butter a 9-inch pie plate really well, or spray with low fat cooking spray. Set aside.
- Whisk together the first amount of sugar and the baking powder. Set aside.
- Beat the egg whites in a clean grease free bowl with an electric whisk until soft peaks form. Slowly start to add the sugar mixture, beating continuously, until the mixture becomes glossy and forms stick peaks. Fold in the broken cookies.
- Spread this mixture into the prepared pie plate.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until lightly browned. It will look really puffed up, but don't worry it will sink.
- Allow to cool completely in the pan, on a wire rack.
- Whisk the cream along with the 2 tsp of sugar in a clean, grease free bowl until thick. Spread into the meringue crust.
- Top with the sliced berries. Serve immediately.
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