Pie Anxiety- Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 6

The newly repaired espresso machine malfunctioned on Tuesday. Sure, one can drink drip coffee in times of crisis. But the week before Thanksgiving? ! These were desperate times, or as one of our regular espresso drinking patrons whispered to me, “No espresso? Call 9-1-1.”

The dates on the incoming dairy order whisper December, but the gallons of heavy cream towards the front of the fridge indicate it is the third week of November. We are icing sugar cookies that resemble turkeys and drumsticks and pilgrim hats. A strange sense of déjà vu overtakes me and the ringing of the bakery phone sounds suspiciously like the phone that rings in my dreams.

I dream of pie on a regular basis, but this week the dreams have taken on a slightly Hitchcockian quality. Lately, I have been haunted by a recurring dream that is slightly out of focus. The room spins in black and white and a rotary phone rings in the distance. A calendar hangs on the wall declaring, “November” but there are no days of the week, no numbers. The large convection oven has a temperature dial that is blurry and the white tubs of baking powder, baking soda and cornstarch simply say Baking. The only thing that is in blindingly living color is a 5 lb. bag of ice-crusted cranberries. I try to protect my hands from the bitter cold of the bag by wearing oven mitts. The bag has a hole in the bottom and the cranberries are falling through the hole, berry by berry. One thing is crystal clear; I am not wearing a pilgrim hat, I am wearing a brown bandana. A few have suggested these night terrors are anxiety driven, stress related. Begrudgingly, I have to agree.

In real life, the next 7 days are careening towards organized chaos. I am still reeling from this week’s Baker’s Math exam. In an attempt to calculate the correct number of 5 lb. bags of cranberries needed for 75 apple/cranberry pies, I am forced to do conversions. Cups to ounces and ounces back to pounds; a true Baker can do this without benefit of a Smartphone. I’m starting to feel dizzy estimating the number of pecan halves and pieces necessary to fill 100 pie shells. I quietly bow out of the how many cases of eggs/butter/pumpkin equation, busying myself with not answering the incessant phone. I’m distracted by a recipe that is tucked away in the recesses of my brain’s recipe Rolodex. There is a recipe for a Turtle Tart from Slice of Heaven that calls to me on my direct line. The pecan halves and pieces word problem will have to wait.

The original Turtle Tart featured a rich layer of caramel and pecans on top of a shortbread crust, with a dark chocolate ganache glaze. On Tuesday, when the espresso machine was down and out, I was despondently sipping my cup of drip coffee au lait and glancing at an online recipe for Pumpkin Caramel. It seemed to me that Turtle Tart should definitely send Pumpkin Caramel a Friend Request. (This is what happens when your espresso supply is suddenly terminated and you are suffering from Third Week of November Disorder.)

As I count down to next Thursday, Nutty Pumpkin Caramel Pie inches its way towards the Thanksgiving dessert table. The only thing it asks of you is an accurate candy thermometer and a bit of patience. (Vanilla ice cream and a few Honeycrisp apples for garnish will add to the festivities.) Fortunately, this is a pie that can be made a few days in advance, wrapped tightly in plastic and refrigerated. Which frees up some of us for the Herculean pie task at hand. And after that? To sleep. Perchance, not to dream.

Countdown to Thanksgiving- Day 7

Pa's "No One Ever Bakes Me A Pie" Apple Pie with Cheddar Crust

For the man who believes hot things should be served hot, cold things cold and Thanksgiving requires both pumpkin and pecan pies à la vanilla ice cream, here’s a pie to usher in the holiday week. The cheddar cheese crust blurs the line between dessert and breakfast, which is totally appropriate for the man who taught me the importance of breakfast pie. Thanks, Dad.

Yields one 9” double crust pie

Cheddar Cheese Pie Crust (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

2½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1½ teaspoons sugar

8 oz. (2 sticks) of cold unsalted butter, cut into ½” pieces

1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese, frozen until firm

¼ cup ice water plus 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (you may need an additional teaspoon or two of cold water)

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment, pulse together the flour, salt and sugar. Add the cold butter and cheese, and pulse just until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Turn this mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add the ice water/apple cider vinegar mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, gently combining the dry mixture with the liquid, until the dough comes together. If you feel it needs an additional teaspoon or two of cold water, add it. Shape the dough into two discs, wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour before rolling out.

Apple Pie Filling

3 medium sized Granny Smith apples (about 1 1/2 pounds)

4 medium sized Rome or Cortland or McIntosh apples (about 2 pounds)

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons cornstarch

egg wash made from one egg yolk mixed with two tablespoons of heavy cream

1 tablespoon of granulated sugar for sprinkling the crust

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll one disc of dough on a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper into a 12” circle. Transfer the dough to a 9” pie plate, roll and crimp the edges. Refrigerate. Roll out the second disc of dough on a lightly floured sheet of parchment into a circle measuring about 10 or 11” and place this on a baking sheet. Refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Peel, core and slice the apples into ½ “ wedges. Toss the apples with the lemon juice and lemon zest. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugars, the cinnamon and the cornstarch. Sprinkle this over the apple slices, turning to coat with a rubber spatula. Turn the fruit mixture into the chilled pie shell, slightly mounding the fruit in the center and tucking the apples in close together. Drape the second disc of dough over the filling without stretching. Press the edges together and trim the excess. Roll the edges of dough so they are flush with the rim of the pie plate. Using lightly floured fingers or a lightly floured fork, crimp the edges. Brush the top of the pie with the egg wash, use a sharp knife to cut four slits on top of the pie to allow steam to escape, then sprinkle the top of the crust with 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar. Place the pie on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover the edges of the pie with strips of aluminum foil to prevent them from overbrowning, and bake on the bottom rack of your oven for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees, bake for an additional 45-50 minutes, until the pie is bubbling in the center and the crust is golden. Remove from the oven and allow the pie to rest for at least 3 hours.

A few words on apples and ovens…

Depending on the size of the apples you use, you should have between 7 and 8 cups of apple slices. I don’t like the pie to be overly sweet- you may prefer a touch more sugar in the filling.

Every oven is different; I start my pie at 400 degrees and reduce the heat to 375. If you feel that the crust is getting too brown, you can drape a piece of aluminum foil over the pie or you can lower the heat to 350 which will result in additional baking time. Test the pie for doneness using the tip of a small knife; you want the center of the pie to be bubbling and the apple slices to yield with just the slightest bit of give. You don’t want crunchy, but you don’t want applesauce.

An Eeyore State of Mind

Many things suggest the onslaught of Thanksgiving but nothing more clearly than the assault of the cinnamon broom at the entrance to Trader Joe’s.

In my pre-holiday Eeyore state of mind, I must push the pause button on yams and gourds. Following a day icing cookies that resemble feathered turkeys and slices of pumpkin pie, the Ameri- Color Soft Gel Paste in Electric Orange has tinted my right thumb. As of this writing, my thumb refuses to return to its natural flesh tone. I have a slight left ankle limp resulting from several close encounters with a case of Libby pumpkin in #10 cans. My knuckles have been nicked zesting citrus of the orange variety. Not only is this a hazardous time of year, I am in desperate need of a hiatus from my November color palette. Who to turn to? I shall seek refuge in the sassy cranberry. Besides, I desperately need the freezer space.

Granted, my vision is blurred by rounds and rounds of all butter pie crust, towering 9” pie plates and clouds of all-purpose flour hovering over the bakers bench. I've grown impatient listening to folks talking Heritage, Heirloom, Organic and Kosher. Except for the Gluten-free Thursday crowd who persist in trying to order pies for the holiday. Why can’t we bake something sans butter, sans flour? Call me old-fashioned, but I’ll take a pass on the pie slice sporting an intricately woven xanthum gum and brown rice flour lattice. 

Thanksgiving is notoriously centered around extended tables, cloaked in monogrammed linen that requires ironing. Drippy candles will leave behind blisters of wax and cranberry sauce will stain napkins dot-to-dot scarlet. Year after year families assemble, squeezing in extra folding chairs, mismatching place settings. We complain about too many side dishes, the right vs. the wrong kind of stuffing, the best way to thicken the gravy and whether you need vanilla ice cream with the pies. Apparently, you do. Added note: the perfectly adequate day-to-day Chemex coffee pot will not suffice. Most guests will ask for decaf, the spunky in the group will demand caffeine and within a very short time, everyone will be as overstuffed as the sofa. Those not washing dishes will seek out a safe haven where they can nod off. (Unless you sat at the Kids Table and you are in the midst of eating the milk chocolate turkey, foil and all.) Despite popular belief, carbohydrates, not tryptophan will null and void the caffeine. Yes, of course we are thankful, but I wonder if we should consider changing the name of the holiday to Carbogiving?

Imagining more than a jiggerful of fun and just a splash of dysfunction as families gather, I will focus on my task at hand and my rolling pin in hand. Personally, I hanker for a small serving of something pie-like. Not by the slice, but preferably by the bite. Something portable, requiring nothing more than one's palm as an adequate plate.

This week I am turning my attention to breakfast and a vehicle where cranberries play the lead and tender sour cream pastry lands the supporting role. There will be plenty of time for Big Pie in the next two weeks. But not today. Today I am all about little bites leaving behind tiny crumbs that can be swept away with my ordinary, non-cinnamon scented bristle broom.

Holiday Pie-ing

It has been one week since the Great Pumpkin rose out of the pumpkin patch, delivering candy to all of the good little boys and girls. Forgive me, Great Pumpkin for turning a cold shoulder on Halloween and forgive me, Neighborhood Trick or Treaters for turning my back on you. It was not my original intent to keep the entire bag of Halloween Pretzels (individual packages of Bats & Jacks) plus the mega-assortment of Heath Bar, Almond Joy, Malted Milk Balls and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups all to myself. I didn’t mean to get home late, long after the Great Pumpkin had made his rounds, but I did. Sorry. Not sorry.

Last Saturday I had won a highly coveted Saturday off and was determined to get out of town. The combination of salty pretzels and chocolate-y peanut butter cups provided my road trip bliss. A girl needs sustenance as she travels the rain drenched Garden State Parkway en route to the Massachusetts Turnpike. Destination? Boston. Host? Master/Master in his new studio digs. Brunch was called for noon, and although I was more than a little bit late, I was armed with enough Halloween sweets to feed the gaggle of Young Musical Scholars assembled in the cozy (translation- small) apartment.

As we sat knee to knee, balancing plates of Nutella and Bacon-Stuffed French toast, the conversation turned from travel to baked goods, from Halloween to Thanksgiving. Between forkfuls of sweet potato hash and sips of spicy Bloody Mary’s, I shared a recent stranger-than-truth story from the bakery. One of my co-workers had recently attended a Halloween party where the featured attraction was a piñata. Not just any old candy-filled crepe paper piñata, this piñata was, as we say in the kitchen, en flambé. A flaming donkey piñata- I had never heard of such a thing. Neither had anyone else in the room. We tried to understand the thinking behind it and came up with nothing. I seized the opportunity to pass around my collection of Halloween candy the old fashioned way. No piñata, no flames.

At one point, we started to talk about Thanksgiving and foodstuffs gathering together. More specifically potatoes and gravy and vegetables. The general consensus was mashed potatoes and gravy were not only agreeable on the same plate, they could share one space. Sweet potatoes and gravy? Not allowed to touch. Stuffing could touch gravy, but gravy should not lean on vegetables. But Nutella could touch bacon?! Absolutely. (Unless you were a vegetarian and you didn’t eat bacon and then you probably would not have been on Saturday’s brunch guest list.) One of the guests admitted to a long held belief in Separate but Equal plating, meaning No Touching. I suggested she check out the tv dinner section of her grocer’s freezer. There were entire lines of meals dedicated to her philosophy with segregated aluminum foil dinner plates to match.

With Thanksgiving mere weeks away, I wondered what constitutes holiday dessert harmony? There’s a bevy of holiday pies where apples cozy up to squash and sweet potatoes go nuts with pumpkin. Where does that leave pie à la mode? Touching? Leaning? Melting? And don’t get anybody started on fruitcake. Fruitcake is something that many people would like to see set on fire.

I didn’t have the heart to bring up Mince pie because people get that fruitcake look when you mention it. The meatless, modern version of Mince is spicy and boozy and filled with perfectly identifiable fruits making it a quintessential holiday pie. It deserves its rightful place on the Thanksgiving Pie Podium.  I like to combine a layer of mince beneath a maple buttermilk custard. With a nod to this week’s flaming piñata, you will be pleased to see I crown the pie with a layer of caramelized sugar that is bruléed. Go ahead, call me a holiday pie rule breaker. It’s what I do.

I am not the only one. Today marked Day One of Thanksgiving Pie order taking. And right off the bat, someone engaged me in conversation, trying to bend the rules. Would I bake her pie Thanksgiving morning so it would be fresh and what time could she pick it up? And what other flavors are we going to make?  So it begins. Which is why, on the morning of the 27^th, you will find me hunkered down in my pajamas, suffering from Post Traumatic Pie Disorder, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And quite possibly, eating a slice of pie for breakfast.  

You Say Potato, I Say Sweet

Halloween rears its candy corn head today meaning that pie holiday is inching its way closer and closer. In an effort to keep things lively in my little corner of the Bakers bench, I am trying to spend the next week or two preparing pies that are not part of the Thanksgiving (oh NOOO, I said the word!) repertoire. Like an actor playing the same role ad nauseum, I’m trying to keep things fresh.

I requested a small case of sweet potatoes from Lancaster Farms because I am a huge fan of Sweet Potato Pecan pie. Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen and K-Paul’s Restaurant made this dessert quite famous in the early 80’s. No one else in the bakery seems particularly aware of nor interested in this flavor combination so I will extol its virtue to Sibling Baker from Seattle who is also a fan. Sweet Potato pie on its own is generally too sweet for my liking but it does have somewhat of a modest following in this locale. Fortunately, there are as many recipes to choose from and doctor up as there are accessories to bedazzle my favorite spud, Mr. Potato Head. I began to pore over recipes this week for pies boasting yams but became preoccupied with memories of the creative play toy.

I was rather smitten with Mr. Potato Head, which says an awful lot about the power of 1960s television advertising. (Mrs. Potato Head was not on my radar until the introduction of Toy Story.) Mr. Potato Head was featured on a commercial that aired repeatedly in the afternoons, drowned out by Jessie’s Sunbeam mixer as she whipped together dessert ingredients while simultaneously preparing dinner. Perched on a wooden kitchen chair, my eyes glued to the portable black and white television set, Wonderama and cartoons played on WNEW’s Channel 5. Jessie wasn’t sold on the idea of the Hasbro toy, and when I finally received a gift of the highly coveted Mr. Potato Head kit, she was less than happy to hand over a spud. Prior to 1964, you needed a genuine vegetable to accessorize; I don’t believe the plastic potato body became imperative until kids sustained injuries, jabbing the sharp little plastic pieces into both root vegetables and themselves. Jessie begrudgingly relinquished a perfectly fine potato that she assured me would sprout and lose it’s pep soon enough. She was right. I kept my Mr. Potato Head in a small Jumping Jacks shoebox with just enough room for him to stretch out comfortably alongside the plastic accessories. Jessie knew a thing or two about potatoes and it was just a matter of time before Mr. Potato Head was starting to look like something out of Creature Features. I salvaged the spud’s expressive facial elements plus his appendages, eyeglasses and jaunty hats then gave the starchy vegetable a proper shoebox burial. I moved on to Mattel’s Beanie and Cecil Disguise Kit which boasted a longer shelf life.

Mr. Potato Head would return to haunt me in later years when I least expected it. While on the road in late fall of 1981, I received a letter from the Idaho Potato Commission, the official home of the Idaho spud. They were interested in launching a new ad campaign featuring my boss as spokesperson. My immediate reaction was to avoid broaching the subject with His Majesty who had just recently (and rather vocally) rebuffed a gift from the Cabbage Patch people who had created his likeness in 'hand-stitched soft sculpture art.' The Potato Commission had included in their letter of introduction a proposed storyboard for the commercial. I had to admit, the likeness of my boss side by side with a potato, was uncanny. It was crystal clear to me what his response would be without showing him the paperwork. I made a very casual, passing reference to the correspondence ultimately deciding to politely decline the potato project. I filed the letter under “Miscellaneous Requests,” directly behind the xeroxed copy of my thank-you note to the Cabbage Patch folks.

In December of the same year, the tour was booked for an extended stay in Ft. Lauderdale. Nearly as exciting as sightings of alligators in the Sunrise Theatre parking lot were the holiday parties. We consumed a good bit of Key Lime pie, but not a single slice of Sweet Potato. Hanukkah intertwined with Christmas and gifts were exchanged against a backdrop of palm trees and Early Bird Specials. I hosted a small ‘Ring in the New Year’ soiree at the Mediterranean-inspired avocado green house I was renting. The General Manager, who was privy to most drama in Siam, both onstage and off, joined us. Insisting I unwrap his gift before he flew back to New York, he handed me a rectangular box, outfitted in the merriest and happiest of holiday gift wrap. As I carefully tore away the paper, there was no mistaking the familiar face, boasting oversized features, sporting a sizable mustache and outfitted in a shiny black hat. He grinned from behind the cellophane window of the Hasbro box, looking barely a day older than he had in 1964 when he was made out of potato, not plastic.

Recipe Here