Blackberry-Peach Pie with Oatmeal Crumble Topping

I had some of my best gals over for dinner and used it as a great excuse to whip up a summer berry pie before the season quickly comes to an end (single tear). I found a fun and simple Blackberry-Peach Pie with Oatmeal Crumble Topping.

I made it the night before and then popped it back in the oven on warm while we ate dinner. By the time I brought it out it had been warming for a couple hours so the slices were soupier than I'd wanted but the flavor was still there. 

I'd also made homemade whipped cream (again, any excuse to use the KitchenAid) and naturally thought I should keep in the freezer since that's where Cool Whip goes. Guess what....Cool Whip must have weird chemicals that prevents it from freezing into a solid chunk - needless to say I had to serve the pie sans whipped cream topping. Lesson learned!

Fresh Summer Blackberries and Peach Slices - this looks good enough to eat just like this...

Oh but it gets even better with some Sugar, Cinnamon, Allspice and Lemon zest!

Topping: Oats, Brown Sugar, Butter & Cinnamon

I was left with 1/2 a pie to polish off over the next several nights - hey, I'm not one to waste!

Lemon Chess Pie

I attempted my first Lemon Chess Pie back in early August with a recipe I found on www.tasteandtellblog.com. I'm not a huge fan of custardy type foods, dislike creme brûlée, pudding, flan, etc but I decided as hopeful baker I should at least master the skill, plus I do love an excuse to whip out the new KitchenAid! So here I went:

The crust turned out great, light and flaky! I followed the recipe for a 9" pie but the filling seemed a little shallow and wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be, however never having had a Lemon Chess Pie it's hard to say how successful this was - but I can certainly say it was not a failure. I'll have to go out to the nearest bakery now and get a piece for a comparison:)

Labor Day: Another Berry Pie - in Jacksonville

I went to visit Jill in Jacksonville over Labor Day Weekend with my Mom, Dad and Page. She and Andy prepared a delicious dinner of steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus and rolls but dessert was provided moi! I landed around 6pm and quickly got into action. My Mom traveled from Roanoke with her Food Processor, Jill went grocery shopping during the week and I traveled with my tapioca (made it through airport security after getting its own special scan). I was busy preparing the dough while my Mom and Dad got the house tour, Page arrived later so I got the tour on the 2nd shift. Jill didn't have a rolling pin so I used a glass to roll out the dough, surprisingly easy (or I've just gotten so good at it). I was spoiled by getting to work in a large kitchen.

Doing the Dough

There's the rolling glass and look at all that counter space I got!
Pie: Strawberry-Blueberry-Blackberry Double Crust Pie

Here's Jill putting finishing touches on the mashed potatoes but you can catch a glimpse of the finished pie cooling in the background.

There she is.

Peach Pie

It's summertime which means it's peach season so the other night I whipped up a classic peach pie. The poaching and the peeling of the peaches is what makes this more time consuming than I'd like but the result was great. I'm curious to make another one and eliminate the poaching step to see what kind of difference that makes. Still it was a nice way to spend the evening and I took the pie into work for others to enjoy. The only problem with this is you have to let it cool for 3 hours so when it came out of the oven at 11pm I had to go to sleep without tasting it. For a second I thought about setting my alarm for 2am but decided to just have a slice at 6:30am for breakfast instead. 

Receipt from Deb at Smitten Kitchen:

http://smittenkitchen.com/2012/07/peach-pie/

summer peaches

peach poaching

water bath to stop from cooking

peach slices

sugary mixture to coat peach slices

ready for baking

ta-dah!

and the aftermath

Berry Pie - Leftovers

I got so many berries for the first pie I found myself with too many berries and too little time to eat them before they spoiled so I made another pie - this time for myself. I changed up the top, did full coverage top instead of lattice and played around the the tapioca amount, using slightly less than before. It's amazing what a difference it made, it was significantly runnier/juicier - but in a good way. What's a girl left all alone to do with a whole berry pie in the summer.....well eat the whole thing, but of course (again sounding like my Dad - too bad his genes of not gaining weight didn't get passed down, my waist line is increasing as I type)!

Before...

After!

Berry Pie

There are so many delicious fruits in season. The farmer's markets are all bursting with colorful berries. I knew I wanted to make a berry pie and couldn't narrow it down to just one berry so went with four wonderful, juicy, delicious berries. Can you guess what they were?

1. Strawberries
2. Blueberries
3. Raspberries
4. Blackberries

It's a super simple process - throw the berries in a bowl and coat with sugar, cinnamon, flour, lemon juice and a touch of tapiaco for thickening (less if you like the juices runny but I sort of like it thicker) and then bake away.

Here's my trick for getting the dough in the pan. After you've rolled it out (and make sure it's thin!) fold it in half, and then in half again.

Then place the center point of the folded dough in the center of your pan and unfold.

I gave this pie to Tricia but not before stealing one piece for myself. Who gives someone a pie that's already been eaten? Doesn't that sound like something my Dad would do!

Also, it's way too hard to bake and photograph at the same time, I have flour all over my camera.

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.

in go the blurrrrry berries, AFTER they've been coated with sugar...

then top with clumps of dough and topped with more sugar...

baked and presto - a seasonal berry cobbler!