Hm…not sure what happened but it looks like Sunday’s newsletter never went out! Below is what you missed.
The month has come to a close and bad news... I am still not a pie master. This cookbook has reminded me that baking, like most things, requires practice. (Ew.) I will revisit this book, rewatch Erin’s Bake It Up a Notch videos, and hopefully have better luck next year. As for the book itself, The Book on Pie is truly an encyclopedia of pies and there are some very creative “piedeas”(hehe). I think the experienced pie baker will get a lot of inspiration from this book!
You should buy this book if…
You want to get better at baking pies.
You want to impress your family for the holidays.
You don’t mind failing several times.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 🦃✨
November Cookbook: The Book on Pie: Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies by Erin Jeanne McDowell
Since I’m home for the holidays, I offered to make the pies for Thanksgiving dinner. In my opinion, Thanksgiving is for the classics. I decided to go with the pumpkin pie (pg. 213) with toasted marshmallows and a black-bottom pecan pie (pg. 239) with mascarpone whipped cream (pg. 111). But I have to admit I used store-bought pie dough. 🙈 Sue me!! I had flashbacks to all the awful pie doughs I made this month and got nervous thinking about other people eating them. The real kicker is that they still looked wonky as hell.
Despite the ugly-looking crusts, both of these pies were pretty successful. They won’t be winning any beauty pageants, but hey, they were edible! I roasted some Smashmallow vanilla marshmallows for the pumpkin pie and pipped the mascarpone whipped cream with a ziplock bag (hence why it looks like it was pipped with all the lights off).
The overall verdict of both pies was good, but the black-bottom pecan was the fan-favorite. I’m partial to pecan pie over pumpkin anyway, but add a layer of chocolate ganache and it’s a no-brainer.
Thanks for reading, sweeties! 🍎
1) "Piedeas" Hahahahaha!
2) I ate a whole pumpkin pie by myself and had to go buy extra whipped cream for the last piece because I had already used a whole tub of CoolWhip on the previous pieces... hence why my jeans won't snap this week...
3) Also bought a peach praline pie with pecans... very, very good impulse buy.