The Sweetie Pie Company: Long Time No Blog...

I'm back! Now I know why some people have full-time jobs as bloggers, it's actually quite a bit of work while also carrying on a full-time job and trying to bake on the side. So I've been away for a couple months - work got busy and well, I got lazy. But I have been doing my fair share of baking the past few months. I "retired" from baking from late February - late April. I decided I was not going to do anything again until I had 2 things; 1 - Food Processor & 2 - Stand Mixer. So then came along April 23 and low and behold I got 2 wonderful birthday presents so I've been able to come out of retirement. Here are couple pictures from the last several months.

BEHOLD! Cuisinart Food Processor (*FP) & Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer.

A must for every baker!

I know this is a baking blog but the day I got the FP I christened it by making thick, creamy & very garlicky hummus. So easy and so good!

I started back in baking territory with something fun - cookies & bread. I decided I needed to hold off on pie until I had some other successes in the baked goods arena so played around with Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and Zucchini Bread (the last not pictured below but let me tell you it was yummsville!)

Kitchen Aid at work!

No matter what, gotta cool!

The official tester gives it a smile!

After feeling good about my baked goods I ventured back into pie. But only with a baby step. At Joel's suggestion I focused on the crust, just the dough and only the dough. Using the FP was a game changer! It's just pulse, pulse, pulse and voila you've got yourself a ball of delicious, buttery dough. I was pretty sure that one of my past issues was not rolling the dough thin enough so I really took liberties with rolling it out this time and stumbled upon a lifesaving trick; turns out the size of one of my wooden cutting boards is the EXACT size the dough needs to be rolled out. So basically I just cover the surface space of that particlar board and I'm golden. (You ask why I don't use one of those silicon mats that has pie measurements? Well, I did purchase one of those and turns out my counter is too narrow for it! That's just to give you a sense of the space I'm working with. The cutting board works because it's thicker and heavier so it can hang off the counter without falling on the floor while I'm rolling the dough out).

flour, sugar and salt combined together (1 pulse)

dump in COLD COLD cubes of butter and pulse (about 5 pulses)

mix in enough cold water to get dough sticky enough to form a ball

ball O' dough

perfect disc

must freeze for 20 minutes before rolling it out

light, airy, buttery layers of crust

just ate basic crust for breakfast, seemed very French in a way

Now I feel pretty good about the crust and my method and I'm ready to move into filling the crust with something sweet and tasty. I attempted my first Lemon Meringue Pie. I got to use both the FP for the crust and the Mixer for the meringue. It came out tasty (tart and super lemon-y, just the way I like it) but a bit too runny so I still need to work on how to thicken up the filling.

lemon + a ton of egg yolks = intense yellow color.

whipping up the meringue topping. just set that sucker on high and you can keep cleaning up the kitchen and let it do its thing until it's done...

...and you'll know it's done if it passes the "Stiff Peaks Test" - which this obviously did!

I don't have a kitchen blow torch so had to get crafty. In order to get that meringue topping golden brown I used the broiler. Turns out you only need to put it in for a few seconds. I maybe kept it in a few seconds too long but it still tasted fine.

The same day I'd also gone to the Farmer's Market to get some fruits so whipped up a Mixed Berry Cobbler. This didn't require the use of the FP or the Mixer but thought I'd share anyway.