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The Peace of Pie

Tag Archives: bourbon

Where to Begin?

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Nut Pie

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Tags

bourbon, pecan, Trader Joe's

Hi friends! I’ve been busy. Life is so sweet. Our friends have been getting married, having very hard times, getting sick, needing help, moving houses, having babies, needing encouragement. This year, I’ve been better at listening to and playing meaningful music, going to yoga classes, and reading books but worse at keeping up with my pie blog and learning Spanish. Everything goes through its cycles.

It’s in the height of California springtime now. IMG_7941

I recently bought a sign from my good friend Emily to hang in our bedroom. It says “Life is hard, God is good.” I want that to be my new answer every time someone asks me how I am.

Since I don’t have very much time tonight, I’ll just start with a small little post.

I saw this new product at Trader Joe’s. (So far, not unusual.)

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I thought I’d better test it out and let you all know whether it’s worth buying for yourself. The first thing I noticed was that there is NO corn syrup in the ingredient list. If you’ve made pecan pie before you’ll know that this is truly unusual. I don’t imbibe corn syrup too often in my life, but I will make an exception for pecan and certain other pies, as it’s hard to get the hallmark gooey texture without it. That being said, the best pecan pie I ever had was this one, made with maple syrup…and so I was excited to try another non-corn-syrupy variety.

When I lack the time to refrigerate my crust before rolling it out, I love breaking out this really nice pie crust recipe that uses no butter or shortening, only oil and cold water. This is the crust my mom uses, and we got it from a dear Schooley’s Mountain sister.

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The ingredients in the Trader Joe’s jarred filling (cause I know you wanna know what IS in it, not just what isn’t) are cane sugar, water, pecans, brown sugar, bourbon, lemon juice, vanilla extract, cream of tartar, salt and citric acid.

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To make the pie filling, you just mix the jarred filling with four eggs and some melted butter. Easy peasy. So far, so good!

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So far, still good. Like, really good. The smell at this point=fantastic.

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Overall comments: Great flavor. Would buy again. Ease of baking worth every penny. Filling cracked apart more than I would have wanted. You CAN taste the bourbon. Slightly sweet for my tastes-I’m used to the super low sugar content of Ken’s recipes at this point-but definitely not egregiously slow. High quality vanilla ice cream should go on top. 8/10

Optional: Share with super squirrelly, dessert-crazy little girls.

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Mixed Feelings

20 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Apple Pie

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

apple, bourbon, caramel, crumb, pecan, spices, whiskey

It’s always a little bittersweet, baking pies for auction. I imagine it must feel like when painters sell their art; there is consolation in knowing that someone else will enjoy your creative work, but isn’t that joy sometimes mixed with the sentiment, “but…but…I want to keep it!”?

I’ll be honest, it’s borderline maddening when you’ve made your whole house smell like apples and caramel and cinnamon and know you aren’t getting a single bite.

It’s okay though. Really, it is. Not only did someone else (my super-fun 3rd grade student Sam’s uncle, Jeff) have the kindness to place the highest bid on this pie and support a wonderful school in the process, I got to bake it. And if that sounds like a paltry comfort, let me put it this way; if the only part of the pie-making process I cared about was the eating, I would have given up on this whole thing a long time ago. Baking and sharing are at least two-thirds the fun.

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Jeff requested an apple pie, and since he was open to a few tweaks on the old classic, I decided to start with a recipe I’d done once before in 2011 (it’s #56 in the gallery)…Liz Reiter’s All-Granny Slug-O-Bourbon Spiced Apple Pie. To that, I made a few more changes: a pink lady apple mixed in with the grannies, a pecan crumb topping, and a little bourbon pecan caramel sauce on top of THAT! (Caramel sauce made by the lovely Carmel, who you’ll meet in a post in the very near future.)

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I have a feeling you’ll be seeing a lot more of this beautiful craftsman cutting board that we recently bought from Karveware, our good friend Jamil’s company. All of their boards are fully made from end-grain wood pieces (scratch-resistant, as they’re self-healing), fitted together to create what almost looks like a wooden mosaic. I’m loving having enough space to chop everything I need for pie/dinner/etc. on my extra-large board. If you’re interested in getting one for yourself, scroll down to the bottom of the page and send me an email, and I’d be happy to get you more details. (Mental note: maybe I’ll post a Karve giveaway someday when I’m a full-time blogger and have more time to generate interest and amass followers and that sort of thing…)

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Here’s the finished product, and as I alluded to before, the smell coming out of the oven towards the end of the hour it baked was just mean. Cruel. 

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I heard tell that this boozy pie may have been destined for Jeff’s bachelor party (he’s getting married soon!) Here’s hoping it was a big hit. And thanks again, Jeff, for supporting a great group of kids.

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