So it's been awhile...

Hey!  Hi!  How's it going?  Uh... ha ha *nervous chuckling*... it's, uh, been a little while, hasn't it?  *scratches head sheepishly*  Yeah, uh, sorry about that.  The start of the summer just kind of distracted me a wee bit.  In case you hadn't noticed.

I really do apologize to my faithful reader(s).  Though I'm pretty sure I have just one.  Hello again, Mrs. Salisbury!

So this lack of updating my blog has not meant a lack of pie baking, trust me!  I've been a baking fiend these last 7 (seven?!) weeks!  Seriously, I've done a LOT of baking.

Okay, so since I waited so long to update, I'm a bit hazy on what happened all those weeks ago, so some of these little pie-tales may be short and to the point.  But with 7 pies to tell you about, there's hardly going to be a lack of reading here.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaay back on May first, I baked a very special birthday pie for my good friends Karley and Kristine.  We had a nice little celebration for them, and I made Karley's mom's Apple Pie.  Though I've done apple pie a few times, this one was new, because not only was it a new recipe, but it was a very different recipe from the one I had used before.

Rather than combine the apples with the sugar and cinnamon prior to adding it to the crust, this time I dumped the apples into the crust, then sprinkled the sugar, cinn., and butter over the top.  And rather than top it with a traditional crust, I mixed up some butter and flour and sprinkled that, much like a crumble topping.

Overall, it was a really good apple pie!  I'm always nervous baking family recipes, since those tend to be the most critically judged, but it was a hit!  Hooray!  And now I know that if I ever get lazy with making crust, a good crumble topping will work just fine :)

The following week I made something I had been really excited about for quite some time... PIE POPS!!!  Basically, they're bite-sized pies on a stick!!!  Adorable, right?

After much hunting, I found the proper sucker sticks that could also be baked and set to work.  I didn't have an actual recipe for these, I just saw a picture and made it work.

First, I used a drinking glass to cut out 2-inch circles of crust.  I then laid those circles on a baking sheet and placed a sucker stick in the middle of each one.  These were Blueberry/Blackberry Pie Pops, so I mixed blueberries, blackberries, sugar, cinnamon, and tapioca together, mashing it all up slightly, and then scooped a small bit of the mixture onto each round.  I topped with another round and used one of the sticks to seal the edges.  They baked for about 15 minutes.

To be honest, they were a pain in the ass to make.  The problem with pie crust is that if it starts to warm up before baking, it gets hard to work with and isn't as flaky in the long run.  So I had to take small portions of crust at a time, and even then got stuck trying to seal warm dough together... it didn't always work so well.

As for taste, it's a lot of crust and not much filling, so while they were good, I'm more of a filling gal, so they weren't outstanding to me.  However, pie pops are really more about the novelty of the thing, and these were darn cute!  So I vote them an all-out win.

The following week was my birthday (hooray!), but in all honesty, I should say that the entire month of May was my birthday celebration... my awesome friends threw me a surprise party the week before my actual birthday (which was amazing), then for my actual birthday my super wonderful boyfriend took me to Chicago for the weekend (my favorite city in the world!), and then 2 weeks after my birthday my family came to visit me and we celebrated then, and THEN I received my final birthday present a week after that!  Whew!  What a month!

So anyway, I didn't make a pie specifically on my birthday (I attempted a carrot cake, but it was absolutely awful... I guess I should just stick to pie), but I made one right before, so it still counts as my birthday pie.  It's called Chips Ahoy Pie, and I got the recipe from my sister, Sarah.

Originally, it wasn't a pie... just a dessert in a baking dish, but I made a crust for it and therefore count it as a pie.  Basically, the recipe goes like this: combine Chips Ahoy crumbs and butter and form a crust... the warm butter will melt the chocolate in the cookies, and the crust will solidify into more of a chocolate crust.  Still very yummy.  Then dunk whole cookies into milk and layer on top of the crust.  Spread a layer of Cool Whip, then repeat, topping the final layer with more cookie crumbs.

This pie doesn't last longer than a day, as the milk will make it waaaaaaaay too soggy.  But also don't serve it right away... the cookies need time to get a little mushy.  I know, it sounds weird, but holy mother of pie, it's AMAZING.  Basically, it's cookies and milk x 100... purely delicious guilty-pleasure pie.  Yum.

Okay, so after that pie came a Chess Tart.  My boss gave me this recipe, and it's right up her alley.  Back in January, I made her a signature pie... Pecan Pie Minus the Pecans + Meringue.  This Chess Tart was very similar to that, so it's easy to see why she picked it. 

It was a vanilla wafer crust, which I hadn't yet tried, with a filling that was basically a whole lot of butter, sugar, and eggs.  Upon baking, it got a nice brown caramelized crust.  This was a pie that could only (and should only) be eaten in very small portions... holy sugar!  It was just about the sweetest, gooiest pie I had ever had... it pretty much tasted like pecan pie minus the pecans.  Good, but very rich.

Next on the list was a Strawberry Cream Freeze.  I got this recipe from my friend Kelsey, and it was the first pie she ever made as a wife!  I think that's pretty cool and sweet :)

This one was whipped cream, strawberries, milk, vanilla pudding, and vanilla wafers all mixed together, then swirled with strawberry syrup and garnished with more strawberries.  It was made in an oreo crust and then frozen overnight.

I should've let it thaw a bit more, but it was pretty darn tasty!  It tasted a lot like strawberry ice cream, and went well with a side of brownies!  It was a great summer treat, especially since it didn't take any baking to make.  I'd love to make it again... I love simple baking like that.  Kind of like no-bake oatmeal cookies.  I remember making those all the time as a kid in the summer when it was too hot to turn on the oven.  Yum Yum Yum.

Next on the list was another birthday pie, this time for my friend Kelly.  We had a big cookout, and I offered to bring desserts... pie pops, cake balls (or cupcake truffles), and Banana Cream Pie were my picks.  Yup yup, Banana Cream Pie.

I had to find this recipe online, and I've definitely learned that when using online recipes, it's best to read the comments and reviews and tweak the recipe based on the often unanimous recommendations.  It saves you time, money, and experimenting!

So based on the suggestions for the recipe I found, I used a vanilla wafer crust instead of a regular crust or a graham cracker one, didn't bake it (as the recipe suggested), and swapped out a few ingredients for other ones.  Basically, I lined the crust with sliced bananas, then topped with a homemade pudding mixture, and then finished off with whipped cream. 

I decided to try and get fancy with my garnishes, and bought a piping gun to put the whipped cream on it. Well, I don't know how bakeries and restaurants get such stiff whipped cream!  Mine just came out goopy (like it usually does), even after refrigerating overnight!  It's really tasty, but just not suitable for decorating.  So what do I need to do?  Anyone know?  Add cream cheese?  Freeze it?  What?!  HELP!

That minor complaint aside, the pie was amazingly good... just about everything a banana cream pie should be!  I don't know what all to say about it, but I loved it and can't wait to tweak it a bit in the future.

The final pie I have to tell you about today is one that influenced the Year of Pie way back last August.  I've mentioned Julie and Julia a bit in this blog before, and it was really the thing that got this all going.  So you know the part towards the beginning of the movie when Julie talks about cooking and how relaxing it is after a long day's work?  Well, as she's discussing why she loves cooking (saying something along the lines of, "no matter what goes on, you know that you can come home and add chocolate to milk and eggs and it will get thick."), she's making a chocolate cream pie... Julia Child's Chocolate Cream Pie, to be precise.

So that's what I made last week!  And boy oh boy, Julia Child was not about making everything easy.  Sheesh.

This was also the exact opposite of the Strawberry Cream Freeze Pie... this one required a LOT of cooking over the stove.  And my air conditioning is broken, so 30 minutes over a pot of steam means a LOT of sweat.  It was disgusting.

So basically, this pie was to be made over a double boiler.  Each step required 10 minutes of stirring over said boiler.  And that meant a lot of steam and heat.  Urgh.

I also learned something about double boilers... basically, don't forget to check the water level from time to time!  In my last few minutes of cooking, I noticed a lot of steam coming out from the bottom of the pot... not the bottom of the bowl, like before.  Apparently I had let the water run out and was now scalding my pot!  Oops!  Thankfully I caught it in time and no permanent damage was done, but yikes!

So anyway, the chocolate mixture went into a baked crust, and was then cooled before being topped with whipped cream.  I brought it into work that morning and the entire pie was finished off in one sitting!  It was creamy, but not too rich (only 2 squares of chocolate went into it), and just delightful.  Bravo, Julia, bravo!

Alrighty, so!  Less than 3 months to this project... and I feel like I have more recipes than I need!  I plan to continue baking after this, so that's not a complaint, but I'm just trying to decide which recipes are going to be included in the Year of Pie and which aren't.  Hmmmm....

Hopefully I won't let so much time go between postings... I sincerely apologize!

Now enjoy some summer pie... I'm getting really excited about all the fresh fruit and endless possibilities this brings!!!