pies and recipes

I believe last week I said something about sharing recipes for some of the pies I made for the pie day party. It's difficult for me to write about recipes because I rarely use them and if I do I tend to only vaguely follow them. But I did actually use several so here's what worked for me. 

First, the most popular, the key lime pie. I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I didn't change anything (other than using my own gf crumb crust) because it was perfect and boy did it turn out great.

The apple pie was just my standard go to, the filling is pretty much apples plus lemon juice plus a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon. The berry pie was similar except, you know, berries in place of apples. For both fruit pies I used an olive oil crust recipe my mother. 

2 cups flour

1/2 cup oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

I use ice water for more traditional pie crusts, and then I stored the crust in the freezer for two days before the party. This appeared to help it to hold together better, since I often struggle with gluten free crusts being difficult and crumbly. 

The lemon blackberry pie was another big winner (people really responded to the tart citrus pies-good to know) and while it used the same oil crust as the apple and berry pies, I did work from a recipe for the filling. This is what I ended up with (adapted from better homes and gardens) I ended up using less sugar and more lemon peel because I wanted the filling to be super lemon-y.

2 eggs

2 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup shredded lemon peel

3/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup melted butter

1 cup blackberries  

I combine the eggs and egg whites with the lemon juice with an electric mixer (I just have a small hand mixer but it works quite well) and then added the butter and lemon peel before pouring it over the blackberries in a prebaked pie crust. I believe I baked it for about 20 minutes at 350 as I was working with very small pies, but I imagine with a full sized pie 30 would be better. I just took them out when the lemon filling was no longer liquid.

I can't seem to find my notes from the coconut chocolate creme pie but I will keep trying to locate those because it was fantastic. Until then, lets talk about Banoffee pie. Banoffee seems to be a British thing? It's bananas and toffee and frankly I made it mostly cause I wanted to say Banoffee over and over again. However it was also excellent and super easy. 

First, take one can of sweet condensed milk with the label peeled off and place it in boiling water for 2.5 hours. When you take it out, it will be caramel. This is like magic! After that it was as simple as slicing a bunch of banana into a crumb crust and pouring the caramel/toffee over the top. I suggest setting it a bit in the fridge before serving though as it is a bit gooey. In a good way.