Some birthday pies...

Alison and Torey had their birthdays this week, and so I whipped up a couple of pies. The top is a peanut butter cream pie, using a mixture of recipes and ideas from some people over at Food Network--the crust from Emeril, with shaved chocolate placed on the bottom, which is an idea that came from Gale Gand, while the filling is from a recipe of Paula Deen, with the addition of Reese's Peanut Butter cups, an idea of mine. It's tasty, but really rich. Though I like it, I'm still more of a fruit pie kind of guy, so the other one is the one I liked more. That one's a cherry/blueberry pie, based on a recipe from this month's Gourmet. I decided to go with adding some blueberries, though the recipe didn't call for it. I'm not sure if I enjoyed the cinnamon in the pie so much, and I don't think cinnamon really belongs in a cherry pie. In a blueberry pie maybe, but not cherry. I did add some things to the recipe: two tablespoons of blueberry port, and a teaspoon of cherry wine vinegar, as well as a dash of black pepper, all three of which I think add some interesting dimensions to the finished pie.

I made my own crust, using the 3-2-1 method which the Culinary Institute of America teaches. The last time I tried this, it didn't work at all, and I wanted to give it a whirl again. I looked back at my blog to read the directions I had written last summer, and realized that I had made a fatal error in my description. This method is based on weight (1 unit of water, 2 units of fat, 3 units of flour), and I mistakenly wrote that a stick of butter is 8 oz., instead of 4 oz., which led to not having enough butter the last time I tried this. This crust turned out just fine, but it's not the best I've made, though it certainly got the job done.

I see a few more fruit pies in my future this simmer. I'm jonesing for a straight up blueberry pie, and around the corner, I'm sensing some peach pies being churned out. One of those is going to be a peach/raspberry pie. I've never made a nectarine pie, and I think that should happen too.

I think it's the summer of the pie. (And ribs.)