Laowai

How can it already be the 5th day of November?

I’ve been enjoying the cooler weather and looking forward to Thanksgiving. I’m bringing the pumpkin pie for our little gathering of Americans. I rarely make homemade pie crust because I’m always so disappointed in my results. Really everything I make pales in comparison to my Grandma Dice’s pie crust. But… I want to try. I want to get something flakey and golden and not too rich or heavy. So I’ve tried two new recipes.

First I tried one from the King Arthur Flour web site. It’s similar to a rough-puff type of pastry that I see being made on The Great British Baking show (love that show). It uses baking powder and sour cream. I used it to make a chocolate pie (bottom crust) and a chicken pot pie (top crust). And I liked it. It was very rich and puffy and I think it was suited to the chicken pot pie more than a fruit pie.

The second pie dough recipe I tried is from The Zingerman’s Bakehouse cookbook that I bought myself a while back. The recipe included very detailed instructions that I found easy to follow. And again I’m pretty happy with the results. This recipe is more like the basic recipe that Grandma Dice made. I guess it’s one of those things that is all in the technique. So I plan to practice – I’d really like to master this.

For this pie I made a recipe that Jennifer gave me – Whiskey Apple Pie. I can’t remember where she got the recipe. You cut the apples thinly and cook half of them on the stove before putting it all together. Yum.