Mini Cheesecake Pies for the Kids

22 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Cheesecake Pie, Mini Pie

Tags

blueberry, cheesecake, cream cheese, kids, raspberry, sour cream, strawberry

This is the exact thing that these pies are called in my ultimate pie guide to life (Pie by Ken Haedrich, if you’re a new reader…and if so, welcome!) But friends, I am here to tell you: these are not just for the kids.

However, I do highly suggest this as a recipe to make (in part or full, depending on their age) with your kids, if you’re looking for delicious family bonding activities. Here’s what your mini cheesecake pies will look like this if you let a pair of enthusiastic two-year-olds decorate them.

We whipped up these delightful little concoctions over the past weekend, during a short vacation with my cousin’s family to the mountain town of Big Bear Lake, California. The recipe calls for individual store-bought graham cracker crusts. And, I can’t*. So I brought along the jumbo muffin tin and made my own. Grease the muffin tin well and they’ll slide out just fine. I wasn’t sure, but I tested it for you all and you’ve got the green light.

*See multiple other Peace of Pie posts where I enumerate the merits of homemade graham cracker crusts.

Here are some things I learned while making these pies.

If you forget to pack brown sugar, you can make a fine graham cracker crust with regular sugar. It’s something I hadn’t done before. Brown sugar is much nicer because it’s a bit damper and stickier, which helps bind the crumbs together. But it isn’t essential.
If you forget to bring an electric mixer, you can enlist someone with strong arms to whip the filling together. The hardest part is the cream cheese, even if softened. I do suggest using an electric mixer if you’re not at a remote cabin with limited options, this is definitely a last resort tip.

A valid question you could ask at this point if you’d like is, “Did you actually participate in the making of these pies at all, Jess?” Let’s just say it was a team effort, with myself, Levi, Pippa, and her buddy Jack all equally contributing to the creative process.

Here is the most aesthetically appealing photo you’ll find in this post. Pies prior to the toddler decorating party, with a delightfully colorful berry plate in waiting.

Next, an onslaught of cute photos of Pippa and Jack doing what they do best: pretending to decorate with berries while actually scarfing down berries. Okay, Pippa was a way worse offender here than Jack. While Jack was placing a blueberry directly into the center of each pie (with enough force to make the filling squish up towards the ceiling), Pippa was promising to “decorate” with each new berry while literally popping 3/4 of them into her mouth. SO many fakeouts.

The recipe contains numerous other suggestions for how to decorate these pies: Caramel-Nut, Candy Fantasy, Choco-Mallow. Anyone else starting to think about Cheesecake Factory? We kept it simple and fresh this time. What’s your favorite berry to pair with cheesecake? I’m a raspberry girl myself.

My pie-lovin’ heart was super happy to see these cute kiddos each enjoy half of one of the cheesecake pies they had “made themselves”. For those doing math at home, the four adults had no problem polishing off the other five mini pies later that evening. Like I said – not just for the kids.

What will you top your mini cheesecake pies with? Do you have a kid in your life who would love to bake and/or eat these? Lemme know because you know I loooove those sweet comments. And, happy fall to my fellow Northern Hemisphereans. Is it me or does a change in season feel especially good this year?

Pi Daze

15 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Chocolate Pie, Custard Pie

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Tags

bittersweet chocolate, caramel, chocolate, cream cheese, custard, pecan, Pi Day

Hi friends, I thought I’d write you a nice post right after Pi Day this year to share how we celebrated, but then my (very new) MacBook started doing this cute thing where it would randomly turn CAPS LOCK on internally by itself and refuse to turn it off, making it impossible to type ANYTHING THAT DIDN”T LOOK RIDICULOUS and locking me out when I would try to restart the laptop because it didn’t recognize the password (since it was wrong, being in CAPS, naturally…) Happily it has just returned from Apple with a new keyboard and we’re on our way again here!

Levi and I have been living in a 735 sq. ft apartment in downtown Los Angeles between Little Tokyo and the Arts District since this past September. It’s been a great experience for a number of reasons. Living in a city can be exciting; there’s so much to see and do and most importantly EAT. We have been able to spend more time together just as the two of us, as a couple, and really feel like best friends more than ever. And we have absolutely loved the opportunity to attend a small Spanish-speaking church in Koreatown regularly. My Spanish still isn’t what I ultimately hope it will be, but the members of the ecclesia are great about helping me practice and speaking slowly when we talk!

We have also been able to host visitors in our new place–though it’s small, our couch is comfortable and our spirits are willing. For their Spring Break this year, we were able to have my cousins Leanna and Daniel and friends Ari and Mara with us. It is pretty cool when your cousins who are ten years younger than you actually want to spring break near/with you, I have to say. The day they arrived we had a plethora of visiting friends at church downtown!

On the Wednesday of the Spring Breakers, 3/14 (we all know the significance of this day by now I should hope), I was realizing that I had yet to make a new pie from the Pie cookbook in our DTLA apartment (I’ve made new ones during this year, like Cherry Custard Pie, Maria’s Double Crust Walnut Pie, and New Hampshire Raspberry and Red Currant Pie, but all while traveling). This was a serious issue, especially as I had the audacity to bring my “Fresh Baked Pies Made Daily” sign downtown with us to hang in my kitchen.

I settled on Bittersweet Chocolate Turtle Pie for our Pi Day celebration. Ken’s description of this one suggests “Serve this kid-pleaser for a pajama party,” and while they’re not kids anymore, a week of six people in a one-room apartment is basically a non-stop pajama party come to think of it. I baked the pie in a beautiful dish that the “kids” brought to me carefully stowed in their luggage-a belated Christmas gift from my Aunt Ruthanne!

Here is the progression of the Turtle Pie:

1. New empty beautiful pie dish!

2. Homemade Graham Cracker Crust

3. Bottom is covered with a layer of toasted pecans.

4. Layer of pre-bought caramel sauce that you’re a little embarrassed of but it was really hard to find a normal bag of caramels to melt down for a homemade sauce anywhere in or near Little Tokyo.

5. Whipped cream cheese with some added vanilla and powdered sugar gets “spread” on as the next layer as best as possible.

6. Best part…lots of bittersweet chocolate whipped cream gets piled over the top, covering the messy layers beneath.

7. Prior to serving, the pie is decorated with whipped cream, and makes a statement about the importance of the day if/when appropriate.

We wrapped up in blankets and took our Pi Day celebration up to our rooftop, where we could enjoy a stunning view of downtown between bites of pie!

I’m quite behind on sharing the pies I baked last year and wanted to take this opportunity to time travel quickly back to Pi Day 2017, when I made a Tyler Pie to bring to one of my school sites in Orange County. I had no idea what a Tyler Pie entailed before I made it, and I’m guessing you probably don’t either. Apparently it is named after John Tyler, the 10th president (maybe he had a sweet tooth?) and it is essential a sweet custard pie with a caramelly flavor (in keeping with the theme of caramelly pies for Pi Day, it seems).

Tyler Pie is very easy to make. If you can melt a bunch of butter in a pot with cream and brown sugar and salt, you can make a Tyler Pie.

(There are some other steps too…mixing and adding a few dry ingredients and spices, and whisking eggs, but yeah. It’s kind of a no-brainer. And it tastes as good as you would expect, given that the starting point is a stick of melted butter.)

Thanks for reading and happy Spring or Fall, depending on what part of the world you’re reading from. ❤

Holy Guacamole

22 Tuesday Sep 2015

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

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

avocado, cream cheese, graham cracker

This cute little list has been making the rounds due to this being an El Niño year here in Southern California. I did have a real moment with the rain last Tuesday where I woke up listening to it in the middle of the night and the sound was so foreign that I sleepily thought all of our sprinklers were broken and made Levi go outside to look. (It hasn’t rained again since then, but, by all means, bring it on! I’m so ready!)

Coincidentally I also went to In-N-Out today and I’m about to write about avocados, so, there you go.

SWEET AVOCADO-CREAM CHEESE PIE!

Sounds like a joke, or a euphemism, but believe you me it is nothing but a wonderfully serious reality.

When a pie is unique, absolutely delicious, and can mostly be made in a blender, it deserves to be made several times in a row. I made this one for my school’s Pi Day celebration (following Pi Days past: Coconut Cream, Chewy Medjool Date-Nut, Butterscotch Banana Cream…) and then I made it again to eat on my birthday. As a birthday celebration.

This pie is made by blending a very high-quality avocado with sweetened condensed milk, lemon and lime juice, powdered sugar, and of course, cream cheese. We ate it with some fresh unsweetened whipped cream. Wow. You’ve got to try it, whether you’re Californian or not.

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in No-Bake Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

coconut, cream cheese, graham cracker, pecans, pineapple, whipped cream

The question is on the table. For a million (imaginary) dollars, answer the following:

Which of the following is NOT found in Millionaire Pie?

A. Coconut

B. Pecans

C. Pineapple

D. Ice Cream

Oh never mind. I forgot to take away the sign.

Although this no-bake pie does NOT contain ice cream, it does contain a goodly amount of cream cheese and whipped cream. Due to the simplicity of assembly, I made three of these for Sunday morning refreshments at church (one with a homemade graham cracker crust, the other with standard store-bought crusts. As Ken points out in the recipe notes for this pie, the intent here is to be quick and easy and sometimes I definitely see the wisdom in that.)

The above picture shows the crusts with just the main filling. Below you’ll see the finished pies, topped with whipped cream and pretty pecan halves. Voilà!

For me, this pie absolutely fell into the category we refer to around here as “the weird ones”. I love to make fruit pies so much that when I have the opportunity to pick a new recipe from the cookbook for a particular occasion, Levi has started to tell me that I “really need to do one of the weird ones this time”. He’s right. This past year was perhaps the slowest yet in terms of my progression through Pie, but not the slowest in terms of overall pie production; I just need to remember to keep trying different things and moving forward. After all, with over 150 recipes left to choose from, it’s not like the pickins are all that slim. And really, I’m always delighted with the results of the “weird ones”. Millionaire Pie won’t make you wealthier, but it certainly has the potential to make you happier. (Unless of course you’re allergic to nuts or lactose intolerant, in which case obviously this is not the pie for you. Steeeer clear.) I loved the texture, the pineapple flavor, the whole delicious situation.

I’m very interested to hear if any of you have ever heard of/made/eaten Millionaire Pie before. I certainly hadn’t before being introduced to it in Pie. From what I’ve gathered, it probably hails from the convenience-food honeymoon period of the late 50’s or early 60’s, and maybe has Southern (Texan?) associations. To propose a reason for the name, Ken says, “perhaps it was fancied by some well-heeled Texas oilman”. (Or perhaps it’s Regis’ fave?) Please do leave a comment if you have any Millionaire pie encounters you can share!

Strawberry Pies Forever

10 Friday May 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cream cheese, mint, raspberry, strawberry

It’s SPRRIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGG!

And here are some strawberries from our garden to prove it!

While I was making this Strawberry-Raspberry Mint Pie I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of the colorful filling. I love all the different textures; the powdery spices, the bumpy raspberries, the dotted strawberries, the wrinkled leaves. There’s just enough mint in this pie to give it a super-interesting depth of flavor. You don’t really taste mint as a separate flavor; you just notice a coolness in your mouth after each bite.

Here are a few quick facts about strawberries that you may or may not already know.

1. California grows 80% of the strawberries in the United States, and our strawberry season starts early, at about the end of March.

2. Strawberries rot when they touch the ground. That’s why they’re called strawberries, because bedding the area around the plants with straw keeps them from spoiling.

3. Strawberry pies bubble over like crazy. (I talked about this last summer.) It’s not quite as dramatic when the strawberries are mixed with other fruit, which is why you’ll rarely find an all-strawberry pie.

I baked this pie the morning of Easter Eve (?? You know what I mean.) I am going to take this opportunity to squeeze in a small brag and show you that I also made Chango Bars for my second grade class and bread at the same time. Boom.

And then we went to the airport to pick up my Aunt Sarah, Uncle Joe, and cousin Matt from Minnesota! It was Matt’s spring break, and he very wisely had decided California was the destination of the year.

We fed him lots of In-n-Out burgers to ensure that he’ll come back soon.

Here’s the pie, all dressed up for Easter Sunday. The pastry here (Tender Cream Cheese Pastry) is my favorite from Ken Haedrich’s cookbook*, and it just gets even better with a little powdered sugar on top.

A good pie makes for a happy aunt.

*P.S. I know many of you have gotten so tired of looking at my pictures of pie that you have already purchased the Pie cookbook. Good on you. If any of the rest of you are on the verge, let me remind you that it’ll only set you back $21.95 if you purchase it through Ken’s website, The Pie Academy. And it’ll set you way ahead in quality of life.

American Pie

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Freeform Pie

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

berry, blackberry, blueberry, cream cheese, freeform, raspberry

Summer is upon us. In California, the only real difference is that you can go to the beach and sit on the sand and not actually freeze to death (though you’ll still do that if you attempt to venture into the water). The sun is a little sunnier, people are a little happier, and the end of the school year is in sight, meaning that there will be more time to bake lots and lots of pies.

If pie is the ultimate American dessert, than a berry pie is the ultimate American summer dessert. One weekend in May, Levi and I decided to preemptively celebrate the coming summer by having an Americana-steeped weekend. We spent time at the Simi Valley street fair, purchased and consumed some summery brews, grilled hamburgers on our barbeque. To go along with the theme, Levi decided that it would be a good idea to listen to country music on Pandora. (I’m still trying to figure out what possessed him.) And of course, I made a berry pie.

Patsy’s Mixed Berry Freeform Pie is unique for several reasons.

The crust contains several unusual ingredients such as cottage cheese, a good amount of sugar, and baking powder. The texture of the finished pastry is fluffier and stickier than your average crust, and the baked end result is rather cakey and delicious.
It has a gooey cream cheesy layer underneath the berries. What a nice surprise!
It’s freeform (as you might have already ascertained by its name). If you don’t know what a freeform pie is, you’re in luck—I just so happen to have some pictures to show you!

To make a freeform pie, you don’t need a pie pan. Just a foil-lined baking sheet will do. This pastry dough is sticky to the point of annoying, so the foil is a necessary step. The rolled out crust goes on the baking sheet, and then a sweet cream cheese mixture is spread over the center in a circle. Like so.

A very hopeful Bear.

Then the berries get dumped in the middle. I used blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries…the more the berrier! Har har har.

Now for the fun part…rolling up the edges. You just fold in one section at a time and the dough forms pleats. I used a spatula for a little extra help.

Bake until the crust is golden brown, top with vanilla ice cream OF COURSE, and share with friends.

Andrew and Marjorie are cute pie models.

Happy almost-summer, all.

The Peace of Pie

Tag Archives: cream cheese

Mini Cheesecake Pies for the Kids

Pi Daze

Holy Guacamole

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Strawberry Pies Forever

American Pie

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