extra treats.   I got a bit of a late start today, I had some errands to do and after an entire week of pie, I honestly wasn’t looking forward to making any more. My objective originally in dedicating an entire week to pie, was to show more than a few fillings, shapes, and things that a person can make with pie pastry, as well as exploit some of the flavourful fruits of the season.

..It seemed only right that after I declare pie week, that my local grocery store shuts down the produce department, limiting my ability to actually use fresh produce.  Add to that, I’ve been carless for more than a week, so really- that was the only grocery store I had access to.

It seems as though pie week has been a bit of a disaster for me, personally. Maybe I would have been better off starting pie week in August, but who knows.

With all of that said, I decided that even though I didn’t really feel like it, I probably should complete pie week with at least one pie, if not a few other pie-neverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comish creations.

One of the requested pies for this week was Pecan, so I figured I might as well make one, despite the fact that just yesterday I made cashew butter tarts (btw, my husband brought the extras to work today and they were gobbled up in less than 15 minutes.)

So here it is- Pecan pie.

A crust closeup-

And don’t forget the delicious pecan filling…

I wasn’t able to get a slice photo today, we’re bringing the pie to a family function tomorrow, and we decided it would be a bit tacky to bring a pie minus one slice. hehe.. Just  imagine the photo of the inside of the butter tarts from yesterday, only with pecans instead of cashews. Its exactly like that.

When I was finished rolling the dough out for this pie, I realized I had entirely too much left over to just sprinkle some sugar on it, bake it and call it good.

We had a few apples that were about ready to go off, so I decided to make some little apple brown sugar hand pies.

They’re really tasty, with huge chunks of crunchy green apple and just a sprinkling of brown sugar and a few spices.

After I exhausted the apple supply, I noticed we still had a fair amount of pie crust left over. it was a bit more stretchy, since it was the end pieces that I’d gathered and rolled out a bit, so the soft flaky texture wasn’t there quite as much as a normal pie crust, but still, I’m not one to throw out a pound of dough for that reason alone..

It was dinner time, so I thought to use the pie crust as mini pizza crusts!

A little pasta sauce, some shredded mozzarella… A few of the mini pizzas had black olives, but my husband got to those before I could snap a photo..

All in all, I’ve learned a bit from Pie week.

1. Pies are best when necessary, not necessarily when planned.
2. You can’t rush pie crust perfection.
3. TIN FOIL TIN FOIL TIN FOIL!
4. There are three basic types of flour pie crusts. Cold, Hot and Oil.
Cold crust is prepared with chilled ingredients and ice water. The dough is a little harder to work with, but its soft and flaky when baked.
Hot crust is prepared with room temperature ingredients and boiling water. The dough is easier to work with for the first round, but if you try to roll the end pieces together to create something new, you’ll have a stretchy mess on your hands which is not suitable for pies, but perfect for pizzas.
Oil crust is similar to hot crust, only you use vegetable or olive oil instead of shortening, margarine or butter. It works in a pinch, and is great for tartlettes, but it doesn’t brown as nicely as the cold crust made with butter.

5. I will always prefer a cold crust made with butter. Hands down.

I figured out that despite even my die hard love of pie, not even I could keep up with a week of pies, and my freezer shows it. We’ve got half of each pie I’ve made this week wrapped up in the freezer, waiting for that summer day where nothing could taste better than a bit of berry or banana cream.

I hope you enjoyed pie week, It’ll probably be a while before any more pies come out of this house. Perhaps a tart or two, but a whole pie? Probably not for a while.

*Smile*

On with the recipe!

1 1/2 cups pecans
3 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup organic corn syrup
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Basically, you just want to beat everything together very well. Add all of the ingredients except the pecans, whisk for about 3-4 minutes, add the pecans, toss them around in the liquid for a bit, then pour into your unbaked but prepared pie crust. Bake for about 20 minutes at 350, remove from the oven, cover the edges with foil, (careful, its hot and liquidy) and then put back in the oven for another 30-40 minutes. When its done, the center will be stiff and not sloshy. Allow to cool for a few hours before slicing and serving.

You can also make tarts with this same recipe, though I don’t know how many it will make, since I’ve not used this recipe for tarts before. depending on the size, I assume you’ll get about 20 or so.

So thats that.. Pecan pie. Tasteee…
Sort of like the ugly stepsister to the empanada, these are made with the leftover pie crust dough that we all end up with, wondering if we should just throw it out, or save it for some good use. Well, my friends.. this is that good use.

Baked, not fried. No fancy frills thrills or special technique, these little pies are full of big hearty apple chunks, a nice dose of cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and butter. AND they’re portable.

of course, you could definately make pie crust specifically to make hand pies, but you gotta rough it up a bit. If you’re using fresh dough, roll it out once or twice, fold it and roll it out again. The dough will be much more sturdy this way.

Otherwise, gather your ends and pieces, add a little extra water, wad it up in a ball, roll it out with extra flour and cut some circles out, your choice on what size. I use a medium sized tupperware lid as my cutting guide, and it works great.

After I cut out as many rounds as I can out of my ends and pieces, usually about 10 or so, I flour them on both sides, dust ‘em off and let them sit for about 5 minutes while I make the filling.

Recipe for Down and dirty apple hand pie filling-
(as a gauge, one apple will fill about 3 medium hand pies, so the more pies you have, the more apples you’ll need.)

for 10 hand pies-

3 granny smith apples
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon organic corn syrup
the seeds from half a vanilla bean (or 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract)
4 tablespoons salted butter

Peel, core, slice and chop the apples into roughly 1 inch slices. You can always chop them finer, but I like big hunks of apple in mine.

put the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, corn syrup and vanilla bean (vanilla extract) in a bowl, and whisk it until combined. It’ll seem a little thick, but thats ok.

cut the butter into 10 equal pieces.

To fill, take one dough round and use a pastry brush to paint half of the round lightly with water. place roughly a tablespoon of the filling into the center, top with pinch of apples (4 or 5 pieces for the size I made) and top with one piece of butter. fold the pastry in half, making sure that the filling stays inside the dough. Pinch the edges tightly, rolling the dough over itself and pressing it down into the pie. make sure the edges are sealed very well. put a few slits in the top of the pie so it wont explode in the oven, and place it on a cookie sheet that you’ve lined with foil or parchment paper. repeat for all of the pastry rounds. Brush the tops of the hand pies with milk and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top. bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes, or until the pies have turned golden brown.

Just a word of warning about these pies. Do not attempt to take a bite out of one until its’ sat on the counter for a few minutes. 10 or so, should do it. If you’re in a hurry and simply cannot wait, put it on a plate and put it in the freezer for about 2 minutes. The filling is VERY HOT. You’ve all read the disclaimer on the McDonalds apple pie box “caution: filling is hot” yeah. its true. For these especially, since they’re made with natural ingredients and will be a little more saucy.

But they’re really good. They store well, and are great to make and put in kids lunches, or even adults lunches. My husband always enjoys finding one in his lunch box. hehe..

And of course, you can substitute many different fruits for the apples. Pears, Peaches, apricots, any of those fruits taste good with the filling recipe.

Enjoy your hand pies!

-A.

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