Fandom Food Challenge
In honor of Bitty from Check Please (aka the resident gay hockey-playing baker - or is that baking hockey player?) I decided to make a pie! This was only my second time (yes, ever) baking a pie. I had to improvise a few things, but turned out to look pretty good - and it tasted spectacular. Take a look under the cut!
I ended up making pear pie rather than apple pie because I had a can of pears that were good until the end of the year and I needed a way to use them up. After some googling I found this salted caramel pear pie (you have to scroll past half the baker's life's story to get to the actual recipe, but whatever) and decided to make it.
Of course then I realized that no store here sold something like salted caramel, but luckily the recipe included a link to homemade salted caramel. So I went and bought salted butter and made my own.
It was pretty easy to make and I followed the recipe exactly even though the amount of salt added seemed a bit much. Tasting the caramel on its own, I definitely felt that I was too salty, but I later discovered that in combination with fruit and used sparingly, it was all right.
Okay, I made the dough according to the recipe:
While I waited for the pie dough to chill, I had a brief moment of panic: I didn't have the five pears the recipe required. I had a can of pears which translated to four small-ish pears. I resolved to roll the dough out super thin to avoid having a 1:1 (or worse) ratio of pie vs. filling.
It was actually easier than I thought to roll out the pie. I don't actually own a pie tin, so my tart tin had to do the job. I greased it with butter and then squished the pie dough inside. Next I added the filling (a mix of sugar, pears, cinnamon, flour and lemon juice - no ginger because I didn't have any).
Because the caramel was so salty, I didn't add an entire cup. I used maybe half a cup. Sprinkled with some sugar and then added a somewhat crooked lattice. (I completely forgot the eggwash but whatever.)
And there you go: a rather thin slice of salted caramel pear pie, drizzled with a splash of caramel sauce.
My taste tester (my mother) said it was delicious. The fact that the pie didn't last out the night seems to support that claim. *g*
I ended up making pear pie rather than apple pie because I had a can of pears that were good until the end of the year and I needed a way to use them up. After some googling I found this salted caramel pear pie (you have to scroll past half the baker's life's story to get to the actual recipe, but whatever) and decided to make it.
Of course then I realized that no store here sold something like salted caramel, but luckily the recipe included a link to homemade salted caramel. So I went and bought salted butter and made my own.
It was pretty easy to make and I followed the recipe exactly even though the amount of salt added seemed a bit much. Tasting the caramel on its own, I definitely felt that I was too salty, but I later discovered that in combination with fruit and used sparingly, it was all right.
Okay, I made the dough according to the recipe:
While I waited for the pie dough to chill, I had a brief moment of panic: I didn't have the five pears the recipe required. I had a can of pears which translated to four small-ish pears. I resolved to roll the dough out super thin to avoid having a 1:1 (or worse) ratio of pie vs. filling.
It was actually easier than I thought to roll out the pie. I don't actually own a pie tin, so my tart tin had to do the job. I greased it with butter and then squished the pie dough inside. Next I added the filling (a mix of sugar, pears, cinnamon, flour and lemon juice - no ginger because I didn't have any).
Because the caramel was so salty, I didn't add an entire cup. I used maybe half a cup. Sprinkled with some sugar and then added a somewhat crooked lattice. (I completely forgot the eggwash but whatever.)
And there you go: a rather thin slice of salted caramel pear pie, drizzled with a splash of caramel sauce.
My taste tester (my mother) said it was delicious. The fact that the pie didn't last out the night seems to support that claim. *g*