It's Been a while

So it has been a while since I have done a post let alone baked a pie.

I have decided to try again with this idea, and will make a smaller goal for my self... a pie a week.

And I am not limiting myself to just desert pies, I will be making all kinds of crusted goodness, perhaps even a pizza pie or two. Try not to hold me to this just yet, we have a big move this weekend, and my kitchen is hardly set up! As well we are currently sans interweb and will be so for a while, so I will be editing these when I can.

So here is to Pi!

Buttermilk Pie

this is the wonderful thing about baking, especially pies, usually you have everything you might need stuffed away somewhere, and you can usually always find a good substitute if by chance you do not have it!

I did not get to taste this recipe first hand, we had to unload some of the pies I have been making, B and I just cant try that many! So I sent this one to a good home, and tummies, where it was well received! This particular one came feedback reported well. My friends K and R were the lucky couple to enjoy this pie. K said it was nice and creamy with a really good flavor! I think next time I make it will be for Christmas with Egg nog!

Buttermilk Pie

enough pie crust for one bottom

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cup white sugar

3 teaspoons all-purpose flour

3 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

this is a super simple recipe no need for extra pictures!

just preheat the oven to 350

in a large bowl cream butter and sugar until smooth

mix in flour, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla

pour the filling into the pie shell and sprinkle the top with nutmeg

bake for 60 minutes until golden brown.

it will puff up quite a bit, but as it cools with will settle down.

kind of shake it to make sure it dose not jiggle to much to make sure it is done all the way though

this is a pretty rich pie, but as I am finding out there is no such thing as a pie that is not rich, if there is I will find it and post it... its gotta be out the somewhere!

but this happens to be a nice pie served cold, after a hard week!

Sweet Nothings

So in my never ending endeavor to make my life as full and complicated as possible I added yet another pat time activity! I have decided to sell hair pieces and return to wedding hair styling on the side. I will have a blog dedicated to weddings and hair pieces later, but I thought I would mention it now, and give you a sneak peak at our new store and blog and what you might find!

Here are a few pieces that will soon be up for sale at Sweet Nothings on Etsy:

So please come and visit us, we are happy to take custom orders for any occasion!

I am also booking for weddings coming up, so if you are in the Pacific Northwest let me know and we will see how we can make your wedding hair everything you want!

(I will update you as soon as my wedding hair blog is up and running!)

Got Lemons?

So here is the product of 6 months or patients!

My husband said that being Italian I should know how to make Italian things, i.e. spaghetti sauce form scratch and any other innately Italian things... so I tried my hand at Lemoncello.

The first round wasn't the greatest it didn't set long enough and it was way to sweet. So this time I didn't add the sugar syrup yet, instead added just a cup and half of sugar to the fermenting process.

It taste lovely, but needs to be cut with something, so I did it with Tonic, and it was pretty tasty!

We will be experimenting a bit with sugar water to get the right consistency! But so far so good!

The process is long and requires a lot of patients. It helps that my husband and I are not big drinkers!

It starts with a couple of bottles of liquor as close to Everclear as you can get.

Then skinning the lemons, which is not as easy as it looks! and you can tell I kind of lost patience by a few wedges shoved in the jug!

Pour in the Everclear

and let it set occasionally shaking the jug here and there ever few weeks to make sure all the lemons get soaked!

this is what happens when you include lemon wedges! a full day of straining... literally it took a full day! (NO EXAGGERATION)

then pop it all back in the jug to stew that much longer and then you have a gorgeously yellow drink that tastes all lemony and yummy!

I think the longer it sets the smother it gets, so I am going to start another batch after I bottle all the stuff I have left, I think they will make nice hostess gifts whenever B and I go anywhere! A little gift of love and patients!

I have still been baking!

So a little hiatus, I know, but I have to say I have still been working on many projects just forgetting to post. and after a month long battle with bronchitis, I am up and running again! So to prove it here is a little bit of help I gave a friend for her sisters baby shower a few weekends ago. No pie sadly but there were many cookies and sugary goodness!

So here are some stellar pictures taken not by my iPhone!

Some Vanilla-lime Turkish Delights

(extremely sweet but so good!)

Baby French Macarons with Strawberry Ganache filling

Just another view next to some cake truffles made by Artisan Cake Company and the sister to the mommy to be!

Party favors for all the lovely guests large French Macarons

The pink ones are filled with the Strawberry White Chocolate Ganache and the green ones filled with a Vanilla White Chocolate Ganache.

These are some cookies requested by the mom to be, Oatmeal Chip Cookies, and Chocolate Chip

I have decided to practice making French Macarons as well as my Pies! I fell in love with the bright colors and limitless flavor possibilities!

So here is to many many more days of baking! I hope you all enjoyed your National Pie Day, and had a slice for me!

(all photos were done by Stephanie Quigley of

Your Vivid Moments)

Momentary Hiatus

Good Morning folks,
I apologize for the long distance between posts. Unfortunately I have been really sick for some time now and have some huge projects in the works so my pie baking days have been limited. I plan to pick up posting again come February!
The month of love quite appropriate for baking!
Keep in mind the 23rd is National Pie eating day, so get a pice and enjoy!
I will be back shortly!

~Kretzy

Hot Potato!

I always wanted to try a sweet potato pie, but there are so many recopies to choose from! Unfortunately I do not think I found the perfect one yet! Though it looked pretty the recipe needs some work! (perhaps it is baker error) but the mixer could have been used once again!

I will give this one a few more tries, if anything I am persistent! The bake time was significantly off, the center was super runny right up till the end, and when I was worried of it cooking too much I had to take it out, it set up fine, but resembled more of a gelatin that smooth and creamy! Non the less I will provide you with the recipe and will update you in the future of any changes/successes! Good Luck!

Sweet Potato Glazed Pie

filling:

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons flour

5 oz evaporated milk

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups mashed cooked sweet potatoes (emphasis on the mashed!!!)

glaze:

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/4 teaspoon flour

2 tablespoons evaporated milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

Pre heat oven to 375

First i boiled the potato to get it nice and soft, i probably could have let it go longer. You want to make sure it will produce a well mashed potato! I used i medium sized potato about a pound.

combine the sugar, flour, milk egg and vanilla... I would recommend using the mixer for this friends! And also make sure to mash the potato before you mix it in with the rest of the ingredients!

Stir in the sweet potato and pour the ingredients into the uncooked pie shell

as for the glaze, combine the sugar, flour, butter and milk

drizzle mix over sweet potato filling.

Bake at 375 for 60 minutes!

test my inserting a knife, if it comes out clean then the pie is ready to be taken out!

I will most definitely be trying this recipe again in the near future I have some good ideas involving brown sugar and a broiler!

Once my friend reports back about how it tasted I will fill you in!

cross your fingers for good news!

Make lemon Pie instead of Lemonade!

Make Lemon Pie!

My husband loves lemon flavored stuff as well as blue berry, once I combined them both into a lemon blueberry cake, it was pretty good, but latter confessed it was a little too rich for him!

So I sought after an alternative, and this is what I found!

The recipe was very good, but as usual I just figured out some thing that I probably should have done! like dare I say use a mixer for the filling! I didnt let the cream cheese soften enough so when I creamed it with the butter and sugar I didn't get the job done! So it was a little lumpy, still tasted good though!

So here is the recipe!

Lemon Cream Pie

Crust:

you could either use a graham cracker or regular pie crust, I prefer the regular pie crust for winter and graham cracker for summer, not sure why just do.

Filling:

8 oz cream cheese
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp flour
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup lemon juice

Lemon topping:

1-1/2 tablespoons corn starch
1 cup water
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

line pie pan with pie crust of choice, and set aside.

cream together the cream cheese and butter, make sure it is nice and creamy! It will make the end product so much better! add the sugar and egg yolk, make sure everything is well blended!

next you will add your flour, milk and lemon juice... after a good little mixing pour it into the pie crust and bake for 35 minutes

after removing the pie let it cool off enough to place in the fridge to chill.

for the lemon topping you will be making almost a lemon curd, which is tart and delicious!

in a small bowl you will need to dissolve the corn starch with a 1/3 of a cup of water, just enough to get it all moistened.

bring the rest of the water to boil in a sauce pan. once it has reached boiling add the moistened corn starch and cook until transparent.

once you have gotten to this point add the butter, sugar and lemon juice.

Remove sauce pan from heat and mix it up until everything has fully combined and it has a nice smooth fairly thick texture... on the verge of pudding.

pour the mixture over the baked pie and place back into the refrigerator to cool.

Serve the pie cold! it is best that way, we ate it a little warm and it was not as good.

Serve it with some yummy home made whipped cream and enjoy! a little bit of summer during the winter.

I will be trying the recipe again, but using the mixer and possibly with a graham cracker crust and will repost some better pictures of it.

Meanwhile enjoy trying this recipe out, it is fairly quick and simple and provides a yummy treat especially in the summers!

peCAN

I tried making a pecan pie last year for Christmas, it was a huge failure!

Thankfully not because of me! Our oven was on the fritz for the holidays (one of the elements were broken and it took extra long to cook everything) and we didn't know until the we kept checking the turkey and it just wasn't cooking!

My pie never cooked clean through, I hate making a cut in the center to check, if I had I probably could have saved it by putting it in longer, but I didn't want to scar my first pecan pie, needless to say I scar them from now on! It is not the end of the world to have score in the center, it is just going to get eaten anyways!

So this is my second attempt at pecan pie:

Pecan Pie

1/2 cup light Karo syrup

1/2 cup molasses

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

1 pie crust

Preheat oven to 350

Mix syrup, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla then stir in pecans

pour filling in to pie tin lined with crust.

I usually decorate the top with a design of pecan halves, but the pie looks delicious no matter how you present it!

bake on center rack for 70 minutes (bake less if you have an oven that runs high, I have a gas stove it usually cooks evenly and took 70 minutes!)

cool at least 2 hours before serving!

The secret ingredient here is the molasses, it gives it a really rich full flavor... mmm and smells incredible!! The best part about baking is all the amazing smells! I wish I could smell like sugar vanilla, and cardamom forever!

Thanksgiving

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving spent with loved ones. We went to B's parents house on Thursday and enjoyed a lovely meal! Then on Friday went to my parents house had another lovely meal, and spent all Saturday recovering from the massive amount of food we had eaten over the past two days!

But the best part was to have four full days with my handsome man!

I also go to spend time with my kitteh, and our little pooper Elvis!

It was a wonderfully relaxing weekend!

I hope you all had just as wonderful a Thanksgiving as I did!

Blueberry Breakfast

This past Monday I was searching the house for something

to grab and take into work for breakfast,

since I had no such luck

I made the plan to head home after work

and make some muffins for the next morning!

I decided to break out my gorgeous mint green kitchen aid,

since it is the baking season

I polished her up and made a very special place

for her on the kitchen counter!

The next mission was to bake!

I found a yummy recipe in a book I bought a while ago.

The recipe called for raspberry jam to be swirled in the top,

unfortunately B finished off his jar of jam,

so I used what was left on two and improvised on the rest!

I used blueberries, since these are Bs favorite type of muffin,

and the other I used grape jelly we received as a wedding present

from a dear old friends, Mrs. B and Mr. M.

And this is what the delicious little treats looked like:

Now that the real baking season is upon us,

you can probably expect to see a lot more recipes up,

other than just pies! I hope you enjoy!

Upper Crust

One thing my good friend R always insisted is that you keep a recipe to your self, one thing you do well and you never share, it is your thing, your special thing! So I decided it is my crust, it is nothing special but for some reason i just works with everything. I always get compliments, and it always rolls out perfect and browns up divine. It is the one recipe that is so ingrained in my head I think I could make it on demand perfectly even if my life depended in it!

So this I will keep to my self, the rest i will happily share!

Even-though I have decided to keep this one secret I will divulge a few helpful hints!

Most recipes call for chilled water with ice cubes, usually 2-3 table spoons, I say use it sparingly!

You never really know how the crust is going to turn out until you get your hands in it, this is where I can say this knowledge comes with practice! You will find when you have made your 50th or so crust you notice that by the time you are finished cutting in the butter you can tell just how much water you will need. The most important thing to remember with liquids you can always add more but you cant take it away!

I recommend NEVER using a machine, the fun of baking is getting your hands dirty, like making mud pies when you were little! it also helps with knowing what you need; a little more flour, more water... you develop a tactile sense over time and soon it become a feeling you have with dough something you just know.

It is hard to not sound all mystical about baking, it is part science but part faith and about a quarter luck. One ting B is driving into my brain s you can follow a recipe exactly, but itdoesn't mean it is going to turn out exactly the same as it should. So when I start sounding fairly (mystical) just know the more you make it the more you will understand, there comes a point where you just know.

One of my last tips for dough, it is ok to be rough with it, people treat dough so carefully and gently, afraid it is going to crumble and afraid of making a mess. Again think primal urges when you bake, make a HUGE mess, get flour everywhere have fun! I find giving my dough a little bit of a beating to be very satisfying as well as gets all the little crumbs in a row... when I roll it out it tends to crack less. Also a resting period for dough is crucial! somerecipes it is ok to roll out straight away, but for the most part 15- 20 minutes int he fridge is a good idea.

Now this is my final bit of wisdom that I can not emphasis nearly enough so listen carefully!

Doubling a dough recipe is a VERY BAD idea! I learned form my amazing Auntie G that you do not double recipes unless the recipe says so! it never turns out the same, take the time to make the second batch it is worth it and you can always taste the difference!

here are a few recipes I have collected, all are very good and can be used with various different pies. (If I reference any crust int he future and forget to give the recipe you can bet you will find it here! otherwise I will let you know how to make the crust.)

Basic Crust

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup ice water

1 teaspoon sugar

combine the flour and salt

cut in butter until mixture consists of coarse crumbs

add 1 table spoon at a time of water

until the dough sticks together

and you can roll into a ball.

refrigerate over night

Gluten/sugar Free Crust

3/4 cup rice flour

1 teaspoon honey

1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/3 cup butter

2 tablespoons cold water

mix together rice flour, sea salt, and xantham gum well

cut in the butter and honey

add the cold water a little at a time

until you reach the desired consistency.

This dough can be kind of sticky

so roll out between two rice floured sheets of wax paper.

Sour Cream Crust

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter

6 tablespoons sour cream

in a medium bowl mix the flour and salt

cut in the butter and then the sour cream

knead briefly on a floured surface

This recipe requires no rest time!