Make your own dang pies you lazy sonsabeeches

Harte

Senior Member
Messages
4,562
I've threatened and warned, and now it's here. Your guide to the holiday pumpkin pie from scratch (sort of.)
The dough recipe can be found here:
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It's called "Pie Dough Cockaigne" and is supposed to make two single-crust doughs. Personally, I increase the recipe by 50% as will be explained below.
Measure out the flour, salt and sugar into a large mixing bowl:
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Have your butter and shortening broken up and frozen. Also, separate into two halves:
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I put a little flour on the paper plate to make the chunks stay separated. That thing on the right is my pastry blender.
You want to keep your mixture cold - keeping the fat from melting out helps with flakiness.
I use the pastry blender, but lots of people use two knives crisscrossing through the mixture to blend the fat into the flour:
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Do half the fat first and blend it in real good. The texture should LOOK LIKE (not feel like) cornmeal:
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Blend in the other half of the fat, this time leaving smallish chunks (these make the flakes):
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You want to use ice water - remember we're keeping it cold:
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Measure in the water one tablespoon at a time, sprinkling it all around and lightly stirring it in with a fork every couple of tablespoons. It ends up looking kind of raggedy:
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At this point, make sure you've gotten all the dry ingredients moistened (by stirring the underside to the top, not by adding more water) and you should be able to gather the dough into balls:
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The extra you see in the bottom is one of the reasons I increase the recipe by 50% - also I like to have extra dough to make sure I have enough for what follows.

Place the dough on a good-sized piece of plastic wrap (I use Glad. Not because I like to spend extra but because I don't have the time or patience to be constantly untangling my plastic wrap like the cheap ones make you do.) Form the dough into a round disk shape, then wrap it up:
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Put your dough(s) in the refrigerator on a flat surface. Let it rest refrigerated for several hours. This is very important, don't skip this step or your dough will be crumbly.
Bring to room temperature before you try to roll it.

More to come.

Harte
 

Harte

Senior Member
Messages
4,562
An hour or two before you want to start on the pie, take the dough out and put it on your counter. When it's warmed up to room temp, here's how I do it.
I use three gallon-sized zip lock bags with the zippers cut off and the sides cut open. Two overlapped on my counter (with a little flour) to put the dough on, and the third for covering the top where I want to roll:
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The third plastic bag is not big enough to cover the whole dough sheet once it's rolled out, but you can gently lift it off the dough and move it to different sections as you roll it out.
I can't roll dough and take pictures at the same time so I don't show me doing the rolling. When you do it, be sure to roll from the center outward, not all the way across the dough from edge to edge. Also, the plastic bags tend to slide around some so I hang my fat ass belly over the near edge to hold them doughs still for the rolling. Do this and rotate the whole setup as you roll out in six or eight directions from center. When you're ready, ease the top plastic bag up off the dough then flip the dough over - bottom bags and all, into your pie pan. Then gently peel back the plastic off your dough.
You need the dough to be against the pan - especially in the corners. If you leave an air bubble between the pan and the dough, it will swell up into a huge bubble that sticks up out of your pie. If this happens, eat it anyway - it won't change the taste.
What I do is lift gently along the edge of the dough and let it slide down into the pan corner. You can press it gently as you do this, but be sure you're feeding slack dough into the pan (by lifting) or when you press, you'll press right through and tear the dough.
Incidentally, tearing the dough is not really a problem, just lift and overlap the sides of the tear and press it back together - it will stay.
Here's the dough after it's been simply laid in place:
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I brush off any excess flour with a pastry brush, but you could use a paintbrush as long as it wasn't too stiff.
Here the dough has been fitted into the corners.
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Also, in the above pic I've trimmed the edges to about an inch or so beyond the pan's rim and rolled the dough edge under to bulk up the edge on the pan rim.
Next I sort of pinch the dough along the rim into a ridge. It looks like this:
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You can go with the dough now to make any single crust pie you want to make, if you don't love anyone.
But if you are lucky enough to love someone and coordinated enough to do this:
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then you can show your love with a fancy as hell decorated edge, like so:
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Here are my two finished doughs for Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pies 2016:
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I'll show the piemaking in the next post. Get your own recipe though. I've spent years on mine and I do it better than my Mother did now. And I'm here to tell you she made an exceptionally fine pie.

Harte
 

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Harte

Senior Member
Messages
4,562
Pumpkin pie.
I said earlier from scratch (sort of) because I use canned pumpkin puree. I've made it with real pumpkins and if you want to know how I can tell you later.
Here's the ingredients I use (four beaten eggs - for two pies - are not shown here):
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The plastic container at right is granulated sugar.

Put the pumpkin in first - take my word for it. Then add your spices and mix it up real good.
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Then add the sugar and mix it up real good again:
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Put in the eggs and mix until the eggs are completely combined.
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Note - eggs have this little white tissue attached to the yolk. There's nothing wrong with that except it doesn't mix in. If you don't want unsightly white chunks in your bite of pie, you need to take a moment to remove these things. I usually can get them out with a fork before I beat the eggs but if you keep a close eye on it you will see them when you get the eggs stirred in. They are easy to remove from the mixture with your fingers at that point - just keep stirring the mix over until you think you got them all.

Now it's time to add the evaporated milk. I know some people used sweetened condensed milk, but those people are idiotic buffoons.
I've heard of using cream for this. I don't think that would be in any way idiotic, I've just never done it.
When you add the milk, add it slowly while stirring all the time. If you just dump it all in, you'll have quite a time getting it all stirred in. If you use a mixer, you're beating air into your mix - don't do that.
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Stir while you add, and after. Stream it in from the can. Be sure you've got it all stirred in - you can easily tell by the color. At this point I'm usually scraping down the sides of the bowl and stirring - don't want to waste any of that delicious mix. I used to tell my friends the only thing better than pumpkin pie is a girl handling your johnson.

Since I always make (at least) two pies, I use a ladle to get the mix into the shell:
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I don't really do it as pictured. I had no camera help. Usually I hold the bowl over the pie shell and ladle it in. This keeps accidental drips off the edge of your crust. Not that there's anything wrong with those drips on your crust - it's just that they get dark and you look like you don't know what you're doing in the pie department if you have them. Use a spatula to get all the good stuff out of the bowl and into the shell, unless you made too much. In that case, put the extra in a ramekin and bake it in the oven with your pies only not as long. That's your "cook's privilege."

This mixture is very liquid, but sets nicely. So, when you go to put your pie in the oven, try not to splash the mixture out of the shell and all over your floor. When you set it on the rack in the oven (450 F for 15 minutes, then 325 for about 45 min to an hour,) ease it onto the rack and gently slide it back so you don't rock the pumpkin filling boat and splash into your nice "clean" oven.

After the pies are done, let them cool completely. I start out on a cold burner and after about 30 minutes or so move them to my counter top. When they are completely cooled, I take a sheet of glad wrap about the size of the pie and lay it over the top. Let it touch the pie filling. It will lift back off when you want some and won't mess up the pie at all. Like dis:
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Refrigerate the pies overnight, or until you can't stand it anymore.
Serve with whipped cream all over the slice. If you use non-dairy or Cool Whip I'm coming to your house to kick your ass.

Harte
 

Harte

Senior Member
Messages
4,562
Oh yeah. Forgot to tell you I made an apple nut cake too.
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This recipe came from my great Aunt - a farm wife.
You ain't gettin' it.

Harte
 

TnWatchdog

Senior Member
Messages
7,099
You are like Harte, 'The Pie Man' from the show Food Network's Star.
You put a lot of effort into it, that's for sure. My Moon Pies, that are laying around, are no match for your pies...but I'm one of the lazy sonsabeeches when it comes to baking. Ha
 
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heka2015

Member
Messages
173
it's just that they get dark and you look like you don't know what you're doing in the pie department if you have them.
Honestly I just peed myself reading the quote above.
I have to use that phrase sometime.

You sure know what you are doing.

Any more of those, hidden away, threads of recipies/pictures of yours?
 
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Harte

Senior Member
Messages
4,562
it's just that they get dark and you look like you don't know what you're doing in the pie department if you have them.
Honestly I just peed myself reading the quote above.
I have to use that phrase sometime.
Sometimes I get inspired and write good.

You sure know what you are doing.

Any more of those, hidden away, threads of recipies/pictures of yours?

I think I linked all the ones on this forum.

Could I interest you in a limerick version of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan?"

Harte
 
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