Thursday, October 4, 2012

Pumpkin Pie Crust Fix

So last night was the worst night ever for my pie crust! Which was more than frustrating since I'm the one bringing pumpkin pie for thanksgiving this weekend.
 My crust wasn't rolling nicely and when I finally got one to roll out, I didn't have enough dough to make it big enough... so I improvised!
 To achieve the braid I cut pie crust into 1/4" long strips and carefully manipulated the strands into a braid
 Then I attached to the crust. You can't see very well (sorry, cell phone pictures) but at the top and bottom there are spaces with no braid. To keep things manageable I made the braid long enough to cover just under half of the circumference of the pie.
 I then added pie filling
 And then cut out leaf shapes to fill in the places that weren't covered by the braid.
I put the pie filling in before the leaves so they would have something to rest on.
So luckily a crisis was adverted... but there's still more to make tonight. Hopefully its a better pie crust tonight than it was yesterday.

Pumpkin Pie Filling (gluten free)
1 can pumpkin puree (make sure that it is just pumpkin, and not pumpkin pie filling)
3 eggs
3/4 of a 725ml can of evaporated milk
3/4cup brown sugar
1-2tbsp chai spices (I just kept tasting the mixture until I thought it tasted right)

Mix all together and place into pie shells (my pie shells were not gluten free, but I will be making crustless pie to achieve a gluten free option for supper)

Chai Spices
Cardamom
Black pepper
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Allspice

I just mixed the above spices into a bowl adding 1tsp at a time in order to achieve my desired flavor/smell.