Shoo Fly Pie

Shoo Fly. Its one of those pies you've always heard about, but never had? Well I decided to try it, and I'm really glad I did. This pie is like a nicely spiced and not too sweet molasses custard with wonderful little sweet crumbs giving it a somewhat cake like texture.

Bzzzzz.

I served this pie at the pie party we recently had, and it did have mixed review though. I think this is one of those pies where you are either going to love it or hate it. I loved it. My fiancee, we'll call him Mr. Tau, loved it. But others didn't like the molasses-ness. The other great thing about his pie is that it is considered a breakfast pie. You can eat it for breakfast. Woot. Which I did, this morning. It went great with a banana. So what if I already ordered my wedding dress and need to not get a single millimeter bigger before then? 


According to Sallie: "The Shoo Fly Pie was created when colonists in the early 18th century found their baking supplies running low late in the winter. The ingredients left in the pantry were usually flour, lard and molasses or refiner’s syrup. Many have presumed that the unusual name of the pie was due to it attracting flies as it cooled near an open window. However, the name “Shoo Fly Pie” did not appear in print until 1926. I agree with John Ayto in his An A-Z of Food and Drink when he states . . . “the fact that it originated as a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty suggests the possibility that shoofly is an alteration of an unidentified German word.” I totally agree with this conclusion because one of those antique recipe pamphlets that Harold Jamieson loaned to me mentioned that the pie had been associated with the name “Schuuflei Boi”."


Oh, and Happy Birthday Dad!


Shoo Fly Pie
Recipe by Sallie


Crumbs:
1 cup flour
½ cup brown sugar
2 TBsp butter
½ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp cloves

Liquid:
1/3 cup dark corn syrup
1/3 cup molasses
2 TBsp honey
¾ cup hot water
1 well beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

To make the liquid part, mix the syrups, hot water and vanilla. Then mix in honey. Making sure your mixture isn't too hot (you'll cook the egg!), carefully add your egg while stirring. Then add baking soda. The mixture will thicken slightly, but it will be runny.

Mmm, brown liquid.

Melty butter.

Next, make the crumbs by adding all the dry ingredients, and then I melted the butter and poured it in and stirred. Evidently I was supposed to cut it in, but it seemed to work just fine. I stirred until the crumbs were all even and very small in size.

Crumbs!

The bottom layer.

Next, in a nine inch pie crust, layer 1/3 of the crumb mixture on the bottom, followed by 1/2 the liquid mixture, following by 1/3 crumb mixture, followed by the rest of the liquid, followed by the rest of the crumbs. Layers!

Bake at 400° for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350° and bake for 20-25 more minutes. Remove pie from oven and let cool on rack.

The delicious Shoo Fly Pie

Pecan Pie Truffles

My birthday, 2pi day, 6.28, is tomorrow, and so in that honor we held a pie party last night. Therefore the next several posts will be about the things I prepared for that party.

Mmmm, bite marks.

We all love pecan pie. Especially one make with fresh Texas pecans. Mmm. Pecans, when they're fresh are a light golden color. The dark ones you see in the grocery store, are probably several years old by the time you get them. And they're fine, but the honey colored fresh ones are just that good. But how can you make pecan pie even better? Make it into a delicious, alcohol laden truffle. Yes. Truffle. Yes. Alcohol.

Warning: These Gotcher Alcohol

Speaking of the alcohol, my local liquor store laughed at me when I asked for a mini bottle, which is almost exactly the 1/4 cup needed for this recipe, and then laughed at me again when I pulled out my chico sack, a reusable grocery bag. I was evidently too much a of a yuppie-hippy for the likes of that store. Then, you can't even buy just one. They come in two packs, so now I have an extra mini bottle of Maker's Mark sitting in my pantry begging me to make these truffles again and soon. Evil.

I've adapted these truffles from a wonderful New York Times article about a Vegan Thanksgiving meal. I've had them both ways, the original recipe and my adaptation, and I have to say, I like mine better. Of course.

Pecan Pie Truffles
Adapted from VegNews food columnist Hannah Kaminsk


Truffle Filling:

2 1/2 cups pecans, toasted and finely chopped (fresh pecans preferably)

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBsps maple syrup (the real stuff)
1/4 cup bourbon
1 tsp vanilla

Truffle Coating:
10 ounces Semisweet Chocolate
2 TBsp Dark Corn Syrup
2 TBsp Vegetable Oil
2 TBsp Water

Start by either using a food processor or a blender to pulverize the graham crackers into a fine powder. Using the same appliance, grind the pecans almost into pecan butter, almost. Mix the pecan butter, graham cracker dust, brown sugar, salt maple syrup, bourbon, and vanilla until completely combined and able to form a nice ball. Using the ever handy cookie dough scoop which I raved about earlier, form very nice truffle sized bits and place on wax paper.

Throw these in the freezer to allow them to harden up for the chocolate dipping process. To make the chocolate coating, over a low flame, double boiler, or microwave, melt the chocolate, corn syrup, oil, and water and mix until completely combined. This acts to thin the chocolate so you don't get a giant thick layer on your truffle. Although I'm not sure that would necessarily be a bad thing...

Carefully, coat each truffle center with chocolate and tap off the excess. I usually do this with two forks. The flat side of the truffle center is down on the fork, and then I just tap the fork on the side of the pan and the extra chocolate falls nicely back into the pan. Using the second fork, I slide the truffle off the first fork and back onto the wax paper.

Dip, dip, dip, all day long...

Place back in the fridge or freezer to set. Enjoy!

Male Hand Model Looking for Work

Om nom nom.

Pie Crust

Step away from the freezer isle. Do not get a frozen pie crust. Just don't. They're full of preservatives, the don't taste very good, and they're full of icky things like vegetable shortening just waiting to make your lipid bilayers inflexible. Plus, a from scratch pie crust is just so good. And so easy. Yes, I said easy.

This post will be your guide on how to make the most tender, flaky pie crust that will make everyone just die during that first bite of pie. And I do it without a food processor, so anyone can make their own pie crusts, no excuses.

To make a good pie crust, you have to be the pie crust, and really understand what's happening to you as you're being made. First of all, for a tender crust that doesn't shrink you want to avoid one thing: gluten. Yes, that wonderful protein that makes pizza crust just so good and chewy, will destroy your pie crust. This is why we add the vinegar into the mix, to help prevent the formation of gluten.The second thing is that you want little pieces of butter (fat) to be evenly distributed through your pie crust to allow for maximum flakiness. Finally, the dough needs to rest. In the refrigerator to be specific. The cold does two things: 1) relaxes any gluten that has formed (Darn Gluten!), and 2) hardens those wonderful little fat chunks so you need less flour (gluten!) when you're rolling out the crust.

In this recipe, we add fat in two steps. The first step is to effectively "water proof" the flour from absorbing too much liquid and then forming gluten. The second step is to evenly distribute our little fat bombs throughout the crust. Mmm.

The final thing to note about this recipe is that it keeps everything cold, all the time, a lot. So freeze your butter the night before, put your bowl in the freezer for a bit before you start. Turn up your air conditioning if you live less than 40 degrees of latitude from the equator, like I do, and its hot. :( It also helps to have things like marble rolling pins (thanks Grandma!) and stone counter tops, but I don't really think you have to have these things.

The Ultimate Pie Crust
adapted from my Grandmother and Rose Levy

Makes enough for a double crusted 9" pie.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
3/4 cup Cake Flour
2 TBsp Sugar
4 1/2 oz full fat Cream Cheese
12 TBsp Butter
3 TBsp Heavy Cream
1 TBsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/4 tsp Baking Powder

Fine Crumbs

Add your flours, sugar, and baking powder into your frozen bowl, and place back in the freezer to chill. Once cold, add the cold cream cheese, and using a pastry cutter, cut in the cream cheese until the mixture is the texture of fine crumbs.

Big Butter

Next, add your frozen butter and cut it in just until everything is smaller than a pea. You will be very strong at the end of this process. Yay muscles. 

Pea Size Crumbs

Combined

Next add your cream and vinegar, stir to combine, and then use your hands to incorporate the dough until it just comes together. You must do this quickly, as your hands are warm. Do not kneed any longer than is absolutely necessary. The dough should still be cool at the end of this process.

Plastic Dough

Divide the dough in half, and wrap each half in plastic wrap, shape into a disc and refrigerate for at least and hour.











Using a light floured surface and rolling pin, roll each disc into a 11 inch diameter circle about 1/8th of an inch thick. Fold the circle in half, and half again to allow for easy transfer into your pie dish.

Unfold the dough and trim off the excess with a knife. Make a pretty design on the edges. I'm demonstrating a simple finger crimp here, but the opportunities are endless. Combine with your favorite pie recipe.

Maybe little pinch?

 

Another design made with two fingers of spacing.

But wait, there's more. What do you do with the extra dough that was trimmed off the edges? Why you make dough babies, of course. Simply recombine your dough scraps and roll them into a long shape. Add melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon in whatever amounts make you happy. Roll of the dough, and cut to form little dough baby nuggets

 

Before Oven

Oops.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 mins or until golden. Enjoy! We obviously enjoyed a little too much because by the time I remembered to actually take a picture, there were only two left. They're that good.

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies

For my first actual recipe, I thought I would start with an amazingly easy, show-stopper of a cookie. Every time I make these cookies, you'd think I'd just given everyone twenty bucks. They're so easy because they're shortbread: butter (lots), flour, sugar, flavor. Done. They're so show-stopper-y because, well, look at them. These cookies are so good, but then BAM! you dip them in chocolate and it takes them to a whole other level of buttery deliciousness. Let me emphasize, they do get even better after dipping. If any of them make it to the dipping process in the first place.

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies

I recently made these for my grandfather's surprise 80th birthday party. My grandmother decided they were so good that we couldn't take them to the party. She wanted to save them all for ourselves. We're evidently not all that sharing of a family when it comes to our baked goods. So instead, they were saved and eaten in the adorable Brown's Point Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage, a living museum and hotel, that at which we had the honor of staying.

Without further ado, the Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies:

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate and Toffee Chip Shortbread Cookies
Recipe adapted from thekitchn

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients:
1 cup salted butter slightly softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 generous tsp good quality vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup Health toffee chips
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

First, start by creaming the butter until light and fluffy with a sthand mixer.

Before creaming

After creaming

 Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar until combined.

Powdered sugar is added, go slow with the mixer so the sugar doesn't go everywhere.

Add a generous tsp of good quality vanilla extract and 2 cups of flour. Mix just until combined. Do not over beat the dough, we do not want any gluten forming and making our cookies chewy. Crisp shortbread is always better.

The final dough product

Now comes the fun part. By hand, mix in 1 cup of mini chocolate chips and 1/2 cup Heath chips. Your dough will be very nice and spotted when you're done, and all the chips will be combined into the dough.

Shameless product placement

Now that's shortbread.

Here is where I tell you my favorite two kitchen products. I feel these products even outweigh the mighty kitchen aid stand mixer in terms of their usefulness (Gasp, she didn't!) The first is parchment paper. Please, just go get some, it makes everything better! Second, a cookie dough scoop. They're like ice cream  scoops, but tiny, and they make perfectly evenly sized cookies. They even come in different sizes for when you want big or small cookies. Today, I used the smaller (2 tsp) size for the shortbread cookies. These are also good for things like scooping cupcake batter into the cupcake tins, melon balling, and making ice cream sundaes for your cats.

Me love cookie... scoops.

One of the really nice things about these cookies, is that they don't spread. Which means you can really pack them on your cookie sheet and bake forty plus cookies in about thirty minutes. Scoop the dough on to a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Using a flat bottomed glass, press the cookies into a flat shape. I dip mine in sugar to prevent the cookies from sticking to the bottom of the glass, and giving the cookies a nice sugar crunch in the process.

Before Squishing

After Squishing

Bake the cookies for 13 minutes in a 350 degree oven, or until they've just started turning golden on the edges. Remove from oven and let stand until completely cool. Now combine the other cup of chocolate chips and the 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil in a small sauce pan and melt the chocolate over a low flame. You can also microwave (in 10 second increments) or double boil if you'd like. Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate and place on a sheet of wax paper. Repeat. I usually throw mine in the freezer to speed up the setting process, but if you have the patience, you can also just wait. Once hardened, remove from wax paper and enjoy. These keep frozen for quite some time, or a few days in an air tight container. Try to eat just one.

Cooooookies.

What's in a name?

The maiden post. This blog is not entirely about pie, nor does my way, or tao, focus merely on baked goods. Nor do I think I even have a tao, for that matter.

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

But for what little insight I have into tao, I do know it is a great homophone for the word (letter?) "tau." Tau is the Greek letter for 2π, or a way to provide mathematical simplification of those equations, and there are many, that use pi. Tau is the angle for the beginning and the end, where pi is just somewhere in the middle.  (For those  that are mathematically inclined, pi is not the easiest way to define a circle, and by simply substituting tau, or 2π, things become surprising simple, and you can read all about it here.)

Salted Carmel and Midnigth Ganache Four Layer Cake

Beyond any mystical mathematical leanings the name of this blog holds, there is the fact that I like pie. If fact, every year I hold a pie party on March 14th, or 3.14. Then, when looking for another excuse to eat pie, I thought why not hold other pie parties on integer multiples of pie, the next logical one being 2π, or June 28th, or 6.28. It also just happens that my birthday falls directly on June 28th, or 2π day, or tau day if you please. It was made to be. I'm so glad my mother didn't listen to my father when he asked her to, "just hold on..." during her labor, so that my birthday could coincide with his, on June 29th. I was born at 10:33 am. I never really liked cake anyways.

Chocolate and Coconut Layer Cake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting

So far we have mathematical obsessive compulsive disorder, a love for pie, and a well timed birth. What else could there be? I need a distraction. Just over three years into a PhD, and the end still a year away. When all you've done is be in school for your entire life, you need something else. This is my something else. Baking is stress relief, a form of instant gratification, where things can be accomplished and finished, in a reasonable amount of time. And if it can be used to butter up a few committee members while I'm at it, I'm ok with that too.


Oh hey, a pie.

I meant to spell it that way.