An activity I love to do in the Kootenays during the summer is to forage for huckleberries. This past week while visiting my parents I had the opportunity to go out to our favorite spot in the Monashee Mountains and pick. The berries are abundant this year and within an hour I already had half a pale picked. Since I had left after work for picking, I decided after a half hour more it was time to head home.

A huckleberry is similar to a blueberry except that it is a little smaller, and tastes more tart, with a very intense flavor. Personally I prefer them to blueberries. I wanted to make something easy with the huckleberries (eating them on my granola was a little too easy) as I was spending most of my time on the lake at my parents camp, so I decided some huckleberry waffles were in order.

Here is the recipe I used:

2 eggs (yolks and whites separated)
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons honey
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh huckleberries

Start by mixing the yolks and the whites in separate bowls until they are light and fluffy. Then mix in the remaining wet ingredients into the yolks until well mixed. In another bowl combine the dry ingredients until well mixed. Then slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Fold in the egg whites until just mixed in. Finally add the huckleberries.

That is it, pretty simple. You can keep the batter in the fridge or use it right away. If you are to keep the batter in the fridge make sure not to mix in the huckleberries. To cook you simply just want to put the batter in your preheated waffle maker and away you go. My family all agreed, huckleberry waffles were a great way to start the day.

Every summer my nephew Mateo comes out for about a month to visit my parents and the rest of the family out west. I used his arrival as an excuse to make it out to my parents place in the Kootenays for a visit. Simply put, the Kootenays are absolutely glorious in the summer. Loads of fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden, hot days and cool nights, and a big lake to jump into for a swim.

I wanted to bake something fun with my nephew while I was back home. Since we had so much fresh fruit around I fell back on old habits and decided a pie would be best. However to make things more fun, I figured we could try our luck at mini pies, or pielettes. We had fresh strawberries, huckleberries, gooseberries and a few apples. A good variety of fruits to make some fun treats.

Mateo really enjoyed filling the pie crusts and making special tops for each pielette. We did a few lattice tops, a couple regular tops, and even a special top we made by making one big sheet of crust.

With all the remaining crust dough and fruit I put it all together into one big pie. As I was arranging the apples in the pie I realized they were starting to look like the vintage CBC logo from the 60’s. So I had fun with it. The pie itself wasn’t the best tasting I have to admit, as the gooseberries really tend to overpower all the other fruit, but it was still fun to make and try.

As far as recipes go I just made a simple butter pie dough for the crust in a food processor. For the fillings I did a variety of things. Brown sugar/cinnamon/butter for the apple, white sugar for the huckleberry, ginger/honey for the gooseberries, and a simple glaze for the strawberries. Of all the pielettes I think the apple turned out best, however the strawberry was also really good.

It was a really fun activity to do with Mateo, and I think he really enjoyed it. Next time I will be sure however to keep the gooseberries separate!

Still on my rhubarb kick, with a few stalks left in my fridge I decided to make a rhubarb pie on Monday. So off to my book of 300 Pie’s I go to find a good recipe.

I found what looked like a recipe that would taste great and got to preparing. Since I wanted to use my Emile Henry pie plate Kasie so awesomely gave to me, I had to bump up most of the ingredients a little more. What I quickly realized was that I didn’t have enough Rhubarb to fill my pie plate. So rather than going out to buy more I just filled the remainder with strawberries. I mean who doesn’t love strawberries and rhubarb anyway?

Since the colors of the strawberry and rhubarb filling would be a distinct red I decided a lattice top to the pie would make for a better presentation. If you have never done a lattice before you will find it is pretty easy once you get the braiding technique. I could explain it to you, but I think it would be easier just to show in pictures. So find below how to make a lattice-top for a pie.

Pretty easy right? I like to use wider strips personally. I find skinnier strips look a bit funny on a pie, and are also harder to cut later. Plus it is more working doing the lattice!

I enjoyed this pie, as did my number one taste tester Oliver. However I quickly realized with this recipe and the rhubarb berry crumble I made the other day, that I don’t like citrus in my rhubarb desserts. Oliver quiet enjoyed the orange tang this pie had, but I found it detracted too much from the rhubarb flavor too much, which for me is the main reason to bake with rhubarb. Regardless the pie still tasted good.

Recipe

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter
1/2 cup cold lard
1/2 cup cold water

5 cups rhubarb
2 cups strawberries
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
zeset of 1/2 orange
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold butter

First step with most pies is to prepare the pie crust. You will want to do this at least 1 hour (if not longer) before you start to bake your pie. I have come to find the best and easiest way to make pie crust is in a food processor.

To use your food processor, put the flour sugar and salt into the bowl, and pulse a few times to mix. Then scatter the cold butter throughout the bowl and pulse 5-6 times. Fluff with a fork, then sprinkle the lard throughout the bowl, and pulse again 5-6 times. Fluff once more, then drizzle in 1/2 the cold water and pulse again another 5-6 times. Fluff, add remaining water, and finish with a final 5-6 pulses. The pie pastry should be crumbly at this point. Dump the pastry into a bowl and work into two balls, one a little larger than the other. Then flatten each ball into a disc about 3/4″ thick. Cover each with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.

Once the pastry has spent at least an hour in the fridge take larger disc out and put on a floured surface and roll out to be a good 12 inches. Gentle fold the pastry twice and place into the pie plate. Once in the plate you can unfold the pastry to fill the plate. Tuck the pastry into the pan by lifting around the outside so it slides in. You do not want to stretch the pastry. Let any remaining pastry overhang the plate. Put the plate and pastry back into the fridge while you prepare the rest of the pie.

Cut the rhubarb and combine with strawberries in a large bowl. Add the sugar, orange juice, zest, salt and nutmeg. mix well then set aside for 10-20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

In a small bowl combine your corn starch and an additional 2 tablespoons of sugar, then mix into your bowl of fruit. By this time there should be a lot of juices from the rhubarb to mix into. Take the pie plate out of the fridge, and pour the fruit into the pie shell. Dot the top of the filling with butter.

Now it is time to do the lattice. Take the second disc out of the fridge and roll it out on a floured surface to be about 10 inches. Cut the rolled pastry into 8 wide strips. Now apply the lattice to the top of the pie as per the photos above. Use a pastry brush and some water to attach the lattice to the sides of the pie. Then cut off any extra overhanging pastry around the pie plate. Lastly brush the top of the lattice with milk or water, then sprinkle sugar on top. Now we are ready to bake.

Put the pie into the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes. It should start to be getting a nice golden color. After this time rotate the pie 180 degrees. At this point you may want to put a pan under the pie plate on a lower rack to catch any bubbled over juices. Finally bake for an additional 25 minutes or so. You will want to see the filling and juices starting to bubble up. Remove the pie from the oven and let stand for a good 2-3 hours before eating. That is it, Rhubarb Strawberry Pie.

Notes: In the future I would not add the orange juice or zest out of personal preference. Also I find that rhubarb has enough juice on it’s own, that adding the orange juice just made the pie a bit runny. If you decide to keep the OJ in, I would suggest adding a bit more corn starch to counter act the additional liquid in the pie.

I am definitely going to give this recipe a second try. Next time without the orange juice and zest, perhaps with a bit more cornstarch. I would also like to try this recipe without the strawberries, and have the filling be all rhubarb. If you try this recipe post a comment and let me know if you liked it or not.

I love this time of year. Not only is it getting warming outside, the weather getting nicer and the days longer, but also some of my favorite fruits and berries are getting ripe. Specifically rhubarb. I remember when I was a kid; my brother and me would go to the garden, pick out big stalks of rhubarb, dip the ends in sugar then chew on them for the rest of the day.

So after finding some fresh rhubarb in the grocery store I knew I had to make something. Inspired by Helen and her wonderful blog Tartlette I decided to make a rhubarb crumble. Helen recently had a recipe for Rhubarb Crumble in which she made it in personal sized ramekins. I thought it looked really cute that way and decided to do the same!

I have to say I am very happy with the way it turned out. They look great, but more so they tasted amazing. The only thing I would change next time is to use a little less lemon juice and zest. The still tasted amazing though. So much so that when I started eating one to get a few shots of how they looked inside, I couldn’t stop eating it until it was done. I just love that rhubarb tartness!

Recipe

Crumble:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup honey

Filling:
3-4 Large stalks of rhubarb
2 cups of mixed berries (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Juice and zest of a small lemon
2 tablespoons honey

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

For the crumble I just put all the ingredients in a large bowl then used a pastry cutter to cut the butter up until it was small and pea sized, and the ingredients were … well crumbly.

For the filling I also just mixed them all together. I then spooned the filling into buttered 3″ ramekins. Finally I spread the crumble on top of the ramekins to cover.

All that is left to do is bake for about 25-35 minutes, or until the crumble is a nice golden brown and the filling is bubbling through. It is best to put a pan on a lower oven rack to catch any boiling over juices.

That is it, an easy delicious rhubarb berry crumble!

Last Thanksgiving I helped out my parents by gathering all the walnuts from their walnut tree. I did a pretty extensive job of it, and was able to collect a giant basket full of nuts. I made the deal with them that I would be able to keep half the nuts I collected, as I love to use walnuts (especially fresh ones) in my baking.

Over the past few months I had made quiet a few different treats with the walnuts, however still had a large amount of nuts left, and really wanted to find a very walnut heavy recipe to use them on. From the recommendation of a blog I read, I picked up the cookbook “Maida Heatter’s New Book of Great Desserts”. What did I find as one of the recipes in the book? A walnut tart recipe!

Basically the way the tart is constructed, was to make a shortbread style crust that you would fold around a caramelized walnut filling. You basically roll out the crust and lay half of it into a flan/tort pan. Then you fill crust with the caramelized filling, and finally add the second half of the crust on top to seal it all together. Once you have baked the tart, and it has cooled, you spread it with chocolate.

Now I wish I could tell you this tart turned out perfectly, but I can’t. The day I decided to make the tart, I was a little bit tired and hung over, not to mention I had to meet some friends for a concert. So basically I had no concentration and was in a big hurry. Not the best time to try a new recipe you have never done before.

Basically the biggest problem I had was with my pastry. My biggest problem was that after I had mixed it, I didn’t knead it enough so that the pastry balls were fully mixed. This became problematic when I went to roll out the pastry as it started to break apart and cause holes. For the most part I was able to fix things with water and left over pastry dough, but it was still a depressing looking. Luckily after covering the tart with chocolate a lot of the mistakes were hidden.

As far as taste goes, the tart was very delicious. I served it up the day after I made it with whip cream and fresh strawberries. This added an extra layer of decadence to the already decadent tart. Unfortunately now I am fully out of walnuts, so I will have to wait until the fall to try this recipe again. Definitely is worth a second crack.

Recipe

Filling:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
200 ml butter
1 cup milk
1/3 cup honey
3 1/2 cups walnuts

In a saucepan bring sugar and water to a boil. Stir until the sugar is fully mixed into the water. Let the mixture slow boil for a good 7-8 minutes until the syrup starts to caramelize and turns a rich brown color.

Remove from heat and stir in the milk and butter. Watch out for the steam this will produce. Stir the mixture until fully mixed together. Return to the heat and let simmer for a good 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. After the 15 minutes stir in the honey and the nuts, then pour into a large bowl. Let stand until cooled to room temperature.

Crust

4 cups sifted flour
1/4 cup suger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold butter
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup ice water

Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl and the water and egg yolks in another bowl. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients until pea size. Slowly pour the egg yolk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until dry and crumbly.

Knead the dough with your hands until it holds together. Be careful not to overwork the dough and melt the butter. Separate the dough into 1/3 and 2/3 parts and roll each into a ball. Place in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees.

On a floured working surface roll the larger portion of the dough until it fills a 11″ x 1″ removable bottom tart pan. Make sure you roll it wide enough to have about an inch of overlap on all sides. Place the dough into the tart pan with the excess overhanging the pan. Spoon the filling into crust.

Roll out the second dough to be the size of the pan. Fold the overhang onto the filling then wet the top of it. Place the second dough piece on top of the crust and filling. Where the pieces connect squeeze them until pasted together.

Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Make sure not to over bake. Let cool until room temperature.

Icing

9 ounces dark chocolate
100 ml butter
16 perfect walnut halves

Heat the chocolate (chopped) and butter in a double boiler over moderate heat. When it begins to melt whisk until smooth and silky. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Pour the chocolate over the tart. Using a large chef knife or a skinny metal spatula spread the chocolate around the top of the tart until perfectly smooth. With a regular spatula spread the remaining chocolate around the outside of the tart. Finally place the walnut pieces around the tart to decorate.

Not as difficult as it sounds. Just make sure you take your time. If you make this let me know how it turns out!

Having made another Tiramisu for my parents a few weeks ago, I had another glut of egg whites. This presented the perfect opportunity for me to try my hand at making macarons for the third time.

I wanted to switch things up this time and do a chocolate shell. I found a chocolate macaron recipe from from David Lebovitz that looked promising.

The recipe was pretty standard. Beat your eggs until they are nice and stiff, fold in the flour/almond mixture, then pipe the mixture onto parchment paper. In my last few attempts I found my macarons I made were way too huge, so I did my best to pipe smaller macarons this go round.

David claimed that in his experience letting your piped macarons sit to build up a skin didn’t help with creating feet, so I decided to skip that step and bake the macarons after piping them. The big result? No feet. Third attempt, no feet. I really don’t know what I am doing wrong. The only thing I can think of is that I am not putting in enough dry ingredients into the batter, as I have found the batter to be a little runny.

Well enough about feet, everything else about the macarons turned out great! For flavors I went with a vanilla butter cream recipe I found online. I altered the recipe slightly by scraping the seeds of a raw vanilla bean into cream.

In addition to the vanilla butter cream I wanted to make some macarons with a chocolate ganache filling. Making chocolate ganache is really easy. Basically chop up your best chocolate (12oz) and place in a heat resistant bowl. Heat up your cream (1 cup) until it starts to boil. Once it begins to boil quickly pour the cream over the chocolate and whisk until the two are blended together. Once the ganache is creamy and smooth you can add in some vanilla extract and rum for some added flavor.

All in all I am happy with my latest macarons. I definitely prefer the chocolate ganache ones to the vanilla butter cream, but both are pretty delicious. I just wish I was able to create them with feet. Next time I will try to add a bit more of the dry ingredients and go back to letting them sit before baking. Some day I will master the art of the macaron.

Back in November I made Italian tiramisu. However when I did I bought way too much mascarpone cheese. In my fridge since then I have had a big tub of Mascarpone, justing sitting there. For anyone who has ever bought mascarpone, you will know it is not cheap. On Friday I decided to use it up. Half the mascarpone I used on making another tiramisu, as I absolutely love it. After doing some searching online I found a great carrot cake cupcake recipe that used mascarpone in the icing that I had to try.

I followed most of the recipe mostly as is, however I used brown sugar rather than white sugar. As well I decided to roast almond slivers and sprinkle them on top of the cupcakes. Finally I didn’t really measure the orange juice, just squeezed a full fresh orange into the batter.

Cupcake Recipe

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 1 freshly squeezed orange
• zest of a full lemon
• 1/2 cup walnuts – toasted
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixer beat the eggs, while slowly adding in the sugar. Mix until the sugar and eggs are nicely creamed together. Add oil, carrots, lemon zest and orange juice. Mix until combined.

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Fold into the wet ingredients until fully mixed. Finally stir in roasted walnuts.

Line a muffin pan with liners and top up each with the batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Icing Recipe

• 3 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/3 cup mascarpone at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons confectionery sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons sliced almond – toasted

Combine the cream cheese, butter, mascarpone cheese, honey, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl and mix well. Frost your cupcakes after they have fully cooled. Sprinkle almonds onto the cupcakes to finish them off.

A pretty easy recipe to follow, and well worth making, as these cupcakes are delicious. I will definitely be making them again in the future!

For Christmas I wanted to make a dessert. A quick look around my mom’s pantry and I found a couple jars of sour cherries; perfect for a black forest cake. I went off and found a decent recipe at allrecipes.com and wet about putting the cake together. I was actually amazed at how simple it was to make.

Despite how easy it was a made a few mistakes. Like after I made the cherry filling, and started to put the cake together, I didn’t cool the filling long enough and put it on the whip cream only to have the cream start to melt. That was bad. I had to scrape off all the cream and filling and cool things down a bit longer.

My next mistake was having to freeze the cake rather than put it in the fridge. We had no room in the fridge so we put it outside to cool. This didn’t allow for the cream and cherries to mix with the cake layers as much as they should have. Finally my last mistake was pointed out to me by our Bavarian neighbor, and was more of a mistake with the recipe. Traditional Black forest cake is made with Schwarzwaelder Kirschwasser, or if you don’t have access to that, needs at least some rum added to it. I had no booze, and the cake seemed to lack that little bit of zing alcohol seems to add to a dessert.

All in all I am happy with how the cake turned out for a first attempt. Next time though I expect perfection and will be sure to make a few modifications to my recipe.

Banana bread is probably one of the first things I baked when I moved out on my own. It is extremely easy to make, a great use of old over ripe bananas, and is a delicious snack to have around. I have made banana bread so many times now I really don’t need a recipe, and can usually just wing it.

So when I noticed a few of my bananas turning black I decided I would do something with them. Instead of sticking to making my standard loaf of banana bread, I thought I would give muffins a go. Generally when I make my loafs I stick to just banana walnut, but thought with muffins it might be nice to have a bit of chocolate in them. I have to say the muffins turned out fantastic, and I will definitely be making them again soon. Here is the recipe:

1/4 cup butter
3/4 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 ripe bananas (mashed)

1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

3/4 cup walnuts
3/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a stand mixer cream together butter and sugar. Once the butter and sugar are nicely mixed together add the egg and continue beating and wet. Mix in yogurt and vanilla to create a nice wet batter. Finally with a spatula fold in the mashed bananas. In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Then fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture 1/4 at a time, until fully integrated. The mixture should be pretty sticky at this point. Finally mix in the walnuts and chocolate chips into the batter.

Fill greased (or lined) muffin cups to the top. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes before transferring muffins from the cups to a wire rack.

Give this recipe a shot, and let me know if you like it.

So after making two batches of Tiramisu I was left with 14 egg whites, and no idea what to do. My first thought was I could have omelets for the next week every day. However that didn’t really appeal to me. So the next thing that came to mind was how about making an Angel Food Cake? As a kid I loved angel food cake. My mom would often make it for my birthdays. I loved how fluffy and light it was, and how well it picks up the flavors you mix it with.

As far as cakes go, angel food cake is one of the easier ones to make. Basically you start with roughly 12 egg whites (about 1 1/2 cups) at room temperature, and beat them at high speed with a touch of salt, about 1 1/2 teaspoons of cream of tartar, 1 cup of sugar (add gradually as you mix the whites) and your choice of extracts (I used vanilla and almond). Once the egg whites have formed stiff peaks you will gradually fold in a sifted mixture of 1 cup of confectionery sugar, and 1 cup of flour. Once you have fully folded the flour mixture into the egg whites pour the batter into a angel food cake pan and cook at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. See, easy.

Once you take the cake out of the oven you can invert it onto a plate and wait for the pan to cool. Once the pan is cooled you can remove the cake from the pan. If you like you can also cut off the browned top of the cake if you don’t want to have that chewy bit on your cake.

As I said earlier, one of the best attributes of an angel food cake is that it is a very light cake, but also that it acts as a sponge and takes on the flavors that you put on it. For my cake I went an easy route, and made some whipping cream, and a raspberry sauce. For the raspberry sauce I just heated some frozen raspberries in a small pot, added some rum, a touch of sugar, and a small cornstarch mixture to thicken.

So on the cake I just put on a dollop of whip cream, then added the warm sauce on top. It made the cake look a bit volcanic, and tasted great.

After making the angel food cake I still had egg whites left over. So I thought I would try my hand at making some French macarons. I have read horror stories from people online about making macarons, so I did a lot of research before hand so that I could get them right. Even so I still made a bunch of mistakes, and well they didn’t exactly turn out how I wanted them too.

My first big issue was that my piping skills were absolutely terrible. I hadn’t pipped anything since probably highschool, so I was really rusty. Also the circles I made for the cookies were way too big. I didn’t realize the batter would span out so much, which was too bad. Lastly I ended up making the chocolate ganache the day before and had it in the fridge. However that made the ganache extremely hard. So I heated it up over indirect heat, however when I did that it made the oils separate from the chocolate, which turned into a colossal mess. I would have been better off just making the ganache when I needed it.

Overall the flavor of the macarons was still good, but I was still disappointed with the result. Next time I should know better, and hopefully I can correct the mistakes I made on my first attempt.

The first time I tried Tiramisu was in Germany when I was 16. My mom took me on a European adventure to visit my brother Robert in Italy, and my brother Richard in France. We arrived in Germany, and spent our first few days with some friends of the family living close to Frankfurt. The wife of the people we were staying with is a fantastic cook, and I knew from previous visits that we would likely be treated to a royal feast. So after stuffing myself on the delicious home made German cuisine that was made for us, out came the dessert. It was a home made Tiramisu, and boy did it blow my mind. The richness of flavors, the satiny smooth mascarpone cheese, the hit of expresso soaked lady fingers. Lets just say I was sold, and the week spent in Italy I would have a new tiramisu almost nightly.

After coming back from Italy this summer I was reminded of my love affair with tiramisu, and decided it was high time I learned how to make it. So off to the internet I went to find a good recipe. I decided to try this recipe as it appeared to be a pretty traditional tiramisu:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/tiramisu-italiano-recipe/index.html

I found it was actually relatively easy to make the Tiramisu, especially if you were prepared with all your ingredients before hand.

From the recipe I ended up using way less lady fingers, as the ones I had must have been bigger than the ones from the recipe. In addition I went with a little more rum to give it more of a kick. It was fun getting to use Marsala in this recipe as it created a lovely aroma in my apartment when making the zabaglione.

All in all I was very happy with the way my Tiramisu turned out. I think in the future I will get a little more adventurous and get a nice round dish to make it in, and experiment a bit with the recipe. For a first time though, I was quiet happy with the results and would fully recommend this recipe.

You could consider this post either really late, or very timely depending if you are Canadian or American. Well I am Canadian so I suppose it is just terribly late.

Over the Thanksgiving holidays this year I did what I love to do when visiting my parents, bake! I knew I wanted to bake an apple pie with my Mom’s deep dish pie pan, but also wanted to do something else. After seeing her massive stack of ripe lemons I knew a lemon meringue pie would be in my future!

I hadn’t made a lemon meringue pie in years. I would guess the last time I had was in home economics class in high school. So it was a bit of an adventure. Over the weekend I ended up making two pies. My first attempt turned out decent, however I was a little disappointed with the meringue and the crust. My issue with the meringue was that I added it to the pie before the filling was completely cool, which caused a separation later on. As for the crust, I used the recipes measurements but made the crust by hand. The problem was the recipes measurements were meant for a food processor. On my second try I fixed up those issues and I think I nailed it pretty perfectly. I used the following recipe to make the pie:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gale-gand/lemon-meringue-pie-recipe/index.html

Here is how it turned out:

After making a couple lemon meringue pies I was still not done, as what would be Thanksgiving without the classic apple pie. When I was in Wisconsin I had tried the paper bag apple pie, and found it to be extremely delicious, albeit a little too sweet for my liking. I really thought the pie as a whole was pretty great though. So I found a recipe online that seemed pretty close to what I had in Wisconsin and went from there.

I used the following recipe for the pie:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gale-gand/apple-pie-baked-in-a-bag-recipe/index.html

I didn’t bake it in a paper bag however, and used brown sugar instead of white. Other than that stuck to the recipe, and carefully watched the pie as it baked as to not over bake it. One thing I hate is an over baked pie crust, as it just gets way too dry. It is a fine line though, because you need to bake your pie long enough so that the juices mix with the sugars and binding agents so that you get a nice thick sauce.

I was a little worried with the apple pie that I might have over did it with the nutmeg, but I think it turned out right. There was just enough to get that feeling of ‘home’. So another successful pie!

I really loved cooking with my mom’s deep dish pie pan, so when I got home I ended up buying myself one. I contemplated getting one of the Emile Henry super expensive ones, but settled for a knock off at a 1/4 of the price. Maybe someday down the road I will get myself an Emile Henry.

Well to all my American friends out there, have a very happy Thanksgiving!