Calvados-Apple Custard Pie

28 Sunday Feb 2021

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

Tags

Hello everyone! Happy March. The most recent addition to ye olde Pie Gallery is…Calvados-Apple Custard Pie.

There are several reasons that certain recipes in Pie have languished for so long without being tried. One that I’ve mentioned previously is how elusive certain fruits are (loganberries, for example). Another common roadblock is that the pie requires a liqueur or liquor that we don’t have handy. Like apple brandy.

Calvados was brand new to me! If, like me, you need a bit of background, Calvados refers to apple or pear brandy from Normandy (apple, for the purposes of our pie of the day). It has a really pleasant flavor, and we’ve discovered that it’s quite nice just mixed with sparkling water. I’m going to be honest here: I just spent about 7 minutes perusing the Calvados Wikipedia article and found it super interesting. Take a look if you’d like (i.e. if you’re a nerd like me).

On to the pie. A partially pre-baked pastry is needed (I had two takes this time – read to the end of the post to see my faux pas). The filling is made by first sautéing large slices of apples (I used Honeycrisp) in butter, a little sugar, and a quarter cup of Calvados. The apples are placed aside to cool and then arranged in the bottom of the pie pastry. In a small pot on the stovetop, cream, more sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, and 2 more tablespoons of Calvados form the custard. The custard is still a thin liquid when it is poured into the pie shell – it sets as it’s baking. Here’s a little photographic representation for ya!

The finished product as it came out of the oven was puffed slightly and had a gorgeous golden color. We cooled it to room temperature before partaking, and it did not disappoint; most especially for a pie we had mainly curiously and no real expectations towards! Levi threw in an overly superlative comment (“I think this really must be at least in my top five…”). However, if this was true every time he said it, we’d be looking at 57 pies in his top five. The flavor profile was complex, yet refined – despite the amount of brandy, it cannot be described as boozy. On the whole, this pie is a very elegant dessert, something I could imagine myself enjoying at a non-fussy French café.

In other news…I have pie failures sometimes! (I hope you’re not too surprised.) Let us analyze the poorly lit photo of a sad partially pre-baked pie crust, below, and see what we can learn together.

Observations: The crust has shrunken, while baking, to a shape that would never contain a custard filling. The edges are poorly defined (no attempt at fluting and very little at crimping). There is also a color/pattern that I might call “Pie Stretch Marks”.

Hypotheses: This was an All-Butter Pastry. I rarely use this recipe, as I like the flakiness that comes from half butter and half shortening or oil, not to mention that plowing through a whole stick of butter per single pastry isn’t super cost-effective. However, the Calvados-Apple Custard Pie recipe did suggest using this recipe based on the unbeatable flavor of the purely butter crust, and I liked that idea. The real thing I’m not sure of is how often I’ve pre-baked an only-butter crust. It’s probably not happened many other times, and I’m curious if that’s a factor. My other thought was that this pastry was probably a little bit overworked, and tighter gluten strands started to form, causing the crust to pull together and shrink. (Hence, Pie Stretch Marks). Finally, I know for sure that I did not roll this pastry out as wide as I should have. When you put a pie crust in a dish, you want it to feel very roomy- if you’re pulling and stretching at the edges to try to make your pie tall enough (as I was here) you can anticipate problems.

Conclusion: I could have probably done something with this, we talked briefly about getting some whipping cream and berries and making a funny pavlova-type situation, but the bottom line was that it was a busy day, we didn’t really need more dessert, and it was best to just move on. Bye bye, shrunken buttery pie.

Here’s an aerial shot to sign off with. Peace, love, and board games. ✌️

Pi Daze

15 Sunday Apr 2018

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

≈ Leave a comment

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. ❤

Pregnancy Pies

22 Thursday Feb 2018

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cherry, Christmas, custard, holiday

By this past Christmastime, I had moved fully into maternity jeans and baby Gelineau was rolling with multiple nicknames. We know she is a girl now, but at the time we weren’t sure, so we bounced back and forth between Geliniño, Geliniña (we hope she’ll learn Spanish) and Jelly Baby, once I found out that those were a thing.

We were blessed to be able to spend time back on the East Coast this holiday season. Besides the obvious joys of Christmas with friends and relatives, we also had a beautiful wedding to attend on the 28th of December (officiate, in Levi’s case) and my younger cousin Daniel put on the saving name of Christ through baptism on Christmas Eve. Amazing!

On Sunday morning, before the baptism, my “Aunt” Chris walked into church carrying a picture perfect pie festooned with red ribbon. I assumed it was part of the morning refreshments that would be served in between Sunday School and the Memorial Service (“Coffee And” as it’s called in New Jersey), but instead she handed it to me, saying, “Congrats, Honey. I made you a pregnancy pie.”

The “pregnancy pie” turned out to be Aunt Chris’ specialty: a fresh cranberry and walnut filled pie with a gooey, sugary layer right above the filling and below the top crust. I have no idea how to make it. I’ve never made a pie like it. It’s super magical.

Being a known pie baker, there’s always something very special about when someone else makes you a pie. ❤

As it turns out, even when you’re pregnant, it’s not in good taste to eat a pie by yourself. We were able to share it over the most hilarious round of Saboteur I’ve ever played. Hilarity largely thanks to cousin Nate and his wild accusations.

Our Christmas Eve pie had been lovingly provided, and it was my turn to make a pie for Christmas Day. I decided to go with Cherry Custard Pie for this occasion, knowing that there were lots of good, fresh, backyard eggs to be found at my Uncle Alan and Aunt Ruthanne’s house.

Trader Joe’s pulled through again; while the pie instructions let the baker know that it is acceptable to use either canned sweet cherries or fresh sweet cherries, I was very pleased with their JARRED Dark Morello Cherries that I’m not sure why I’m advertising to you now because I’ll bet they’re only stocked around Christmas time. (I could be wrong. You should still try to find them if you want to.) The recipe doesn’t say this explicitly, but I would imagine frozen cherries would be a bad idea and make little pools of water amongst the custard. You’ll see what I mean shortly.

This recipe also calls for an optional addition of kirsch, Grand Marnier, or triple sec. No one wants to buy bottles of those things unless they’re already hanging around, am I right? But since there was Kijafa on hand, I threw a splash of that in instead. (The only reason I’ve even heard the word Kijafa before? Our favorite pancake house in NJ has Cherry Kijafa Crepes on the menu, and it’s been my cousin Leanna’s go-to order since she was little. I’m thinking she has tried to replicate them at home? This is at least a feasible explanation for having this very obscure tipple on hand.)

Here’s the really fun part of this recipe. After filling the crust with custard, the cherries get dropped in evenly, gently, throughout the whole pie! The effect is awesome.

Once the pie has been thoroughly polka-dotted with cherries, it’s baked until set (like any custard pie), cooled, and chilled.

We woke up on Christmas morning to snow (albeit light), which is always the dream. Christmas was spent trying to eat as much delicious antipasti as humanly possible and playing Family Feud (at which Nana was not half bad).

Oh, and naps. Holidays are for naps too.

Thanks for keeping up, friends. See you soon.

Making the Grade

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

custard, maple

I followed Obi’s example and took a nap during the making of this pie. (Although I did not take the imitation so far as to nestle down in a pile of laundry.) It was necessary. That morning had been the last day of school for my students, and to say that the week had been ‘busy’ would be quite an understatement.

It’s okay though, I didn’t nap while anything was in the oven. I’m not that foolhardy. I only napped while the pre-baked crust was cooling. (Hint: this should tip you off to the presence of a cream or custardy sort of pie.)

Wanna see the main ingredient?

Yum yum yum. Maple Syrup! Now, for this Maple Custard Pie, Ken says to use lighter syrup, Grade A. I think this turned out fine. As long as you use pure maple, any grade will give it a nice flavor.

I find it ironic that after all my hard work grading and writing report cards that week, I still had to think about A’s and B’s as I made this pie.

Doesn’t it kind of look like a sweet potato pie? The darker syrup definitely lent itself to the color, as did the 4 egg yolks, since my eggs come from happy hens and have gorgeous dark yellow yolks.

We ate this with a bunch of lovely Australians, and it really did feel like summer had finally begun.

Summertime and the bakin’ is easy

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

corn, cream, custard

Today I baked a Sweet Summer Corn Pie. I already made two of them last month, but I couldn’t find the picture I’d taken of the finished product (or maybe I never saved that picture at all?). And I got three ears of fresh sweet corn in my CSA box yesterday. And…oh yeah, I don’t work during the summer. Oh well. There was just nothing for it but to make another one. In case you’re curious what they taste like, they’re very creamy…the texture almost reminded me of flan…but some of the corn kernels are left whole. Definitely yummy. I wouldn’t use anything but the freshest summer stuff, though.

My new puppy Obi helpfully tried to eat the husks of the corn as I shucked it.

The following pictures are all from July. My little cousin Ava helped…and a very good helper she was! She’s only three, born a couple of days before my wedding, but she’s already an accomplished baker.