More About Pies

So the last post got a little long winded (what? No, you long winded? Never!) So, here is what went into the crusts. In keeping with my tendency to not follow any instructions what so ever (yes, there were detailed instructions in the last post, I left off the detours for, um, the sake of brevity) I made these roughly based upon the written recipes on the black cover sheet of my copy of Joy of Cooking.

For the pumpkin pies, 4 organic free-range Sugar pie pumpkins were split, seeded, roasted in 1/2" of water, scooped out and mashed. I chose to do this by hand, a potato masher works too. For two pies the following was combined:

5 cups roased mashed pumpkin
2.5 cups evaporated milk
1 cups whole cream
1/4 cup XO cognac (it's all I had okay?)
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup unbleached organic fine turbinado sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon each nutmeg and mace
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
5 eggs, slightly whipped

I vigouroulsy whip all of the ingredients to thoroughly blend. I use a stiff ballon whisk and a large bowl, really give it a beating. I then filter the custard through I medium fine sieve to remove any egg or solids that did not go smoothly into the custard batter. This is then refigerated while crusts are rolled. Chilled custard into a chilled crust set into a room temperature pie pan, do not put chilled glass into the oven.

For the apple pies, who knows how many pounds of fresh apples were processed for the two pies. I went and bought Granny Smiths, Fujis, Braeburns and one other variety which the name escapes me, there were 1 plastic bag of each, except for the Fujis, where there were two bags. All were peeled and cored, kept in acidulated water and then spiced as follows:

1 very large bowl of chopped apples
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup organic fine grind unbleached sugar
1/2 cup bourbon (single barrel small batch bourbon, it's all I had)
1 tablespoon Meyer lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon each nutmeg, allspice and mace
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

All was mixed together and allowed to sit overnight. This was just to give me more time on Thanksgiving to get the pies rolled and baked.

All pies were baked initially at 425F for 10 minutes, then oven was lowered to 325F and remaining time ranged from 35 to 45 minutes until pies were done. For apple pies, I go by color, for pumpkin, I go by a clean knife test.

These pies were quite good, I really like spiking the pie fillings, it just adds one more layer of flavor to the filling.