peach pie filling

forgot to snap the finished pies!

not a mini pie

but still made in my mini pie maker! chocolate chip muffins.

recipe from the user manual that came with the pie maker and according to my testers (sister, niece, husband, and brother in law) they were a 10 on the YUM scale.

the recipe called for self-rising flour. i don't have any self rising flour. what to do?

use what you have: internet, all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt

to make my own self-rising flour and it worked wonderfully.

Because there was leftover batter from batch #1 I ended up making 2 batches for a total of 12 muffins....they went fast

lesson 2: room temperature

to celebrate our first snowflakes of the year (very briefly) this afternoon, I wanted to bake some mini pies! did I really need an excuse: no, not really. not one bit. i like to bake and this pie maker makes it so easy and fast.

todays lesson relates to our favorite baking term "room temperature."

how does this affect our pies?

1. store bought pie crusts are rolled into tubes and kept refrigerated. if I were to take the crust out of the fridge and try to unroll it, I would see the crust crack open in spots, making little holes; not what I want in my mini pie crusts. so, i take them out and take the roll out of the plastic wrapping and let it sit out for a while. I don't let the crust get all the way to room temp because then they become soft, sticky and difficult to work with.

2. however, when it comes to the ingredients for the filling, room temperature is better. I made chocolate cheesecakes today and good cheesecake demands that all ingredients be room temp. this allows them to blend together nicely, and faster, making for a smooth filling that doesn't have a lot of air whipped into it, leaving it dense and delicious.

I took this photo after having quickly placed the crusts and spooned out the filling.

also of note, as with my art making, when I bake I like to use what I already have on hand. since I didn't have any bittersweet baking chocolate on hand (I know, what kind of baker doesn't have baking chocolate in their pantry?) I grabbed my cocoa and followed the directions on the package to substitute (1 tablespoon vegetable oil + 3 tablespoons cocoa). it worked perfectly.

but really I should let you be the judge of that ;)

what do you think?

lesson 1: don't overfill the pies

actually, this should be lesson #2 but I didn't take pictures when I made my first mistake so this will be the first mistake I share with you :)

a good scientist baker measures accurately, and I am usually no exception to this rule. however, despite mixing up the apple pie filling exactly to the recipe I didn't bother measuring the amount of filling I put into the pies. the cookbook and the user manual state that no more than 1/3 of a cup of filling should be added to each pie. AND this is the first batch of pies I have baked with lids (top crusts).....so....naturally I just split the filling 4 ways and called it good.

See, there's this pressure you have when the pie maker is all preheated (and it gets HOT) and you've put your crusts in and shaped them with the little shaper tool, the crusts are starting to sizzle away...now you've got to fill and lid the pies quickly....this takes practice. I need to shoot some pics of these stages too...but I haven't had time ;)

and I'm still getting the hang of this food blogging.

here's the puff pastry for the lids rolled out and resting.

here are the delicious apples cooking in butter - nothing better than butter for flavor-let's zoom in on those apples:

yummy spice and sugar mixture for the filling too

here is the apple filling all finished and waiting it's turn.

So, here's the part where i've put the pie crust bottoms in the HOT pie maker machine and I and hurredly filling the crusts with what I perceive to be equal amounts of apple pie filling and of course it looks like it's less than 1/3 cup.

However, evidence emerges that the pies were overfilled:

oops...

the pies were still yummy according to my husband - I thought so too. the fillings that I've made from the Mini Pie Book so far have been delicious!

Next up: why your puff pastry needs to rest.....

So, what do you think? can you smell the sweet, buttery apple filling?

do you like your apple pie a la mode?

-D

welcome!

welcome to my new blog. I am excited to share with you my experiences baking!

I received a min pie maker for Christmas from my sister and brother-in-law and I love it!

I'll be focusing mainly on mini pies but since I love to bake I'll mix in some of my other baking experiences with you. I fancy myself as an amateur scientific baker so anytime I try something new it's "an experiment."

behold! the bacon and potato quiche. yes the crust is lopsided but hey, this isn't Chopped!

this was my second experiment with my new mini pie maker. I should also mention that with the pie maker I also received the cookbook Mini Pies by Abigail Johnson Dodge and it is simply wonderful.

I hope you enjoy and please share your thoughts - I love comments!!

next up: our first lesson!