Bourbon-Caramel Pumpkin Pie

November 30, 2013 by Mackenzie

Gooey caramel, creamy pumpkin, savory crust… what could be better in a pie! I’ve actually made this twice in the last week – once for our Coop Thanksgiving potluck, and then since it was so good – I added it to my family’s Thanksgiving menu! I changed a few things when I made it the second time, a few things for the better and a few things that were better the first time! So hopefully, I’ve got the recipe nailed perfectly here and you can enjoy it just as much as we did!

I will warn you, this is a complicated recipe! There are many steps and it can take a long time. The steps themselves aren’t difficult or time-consuming, there’s just a lot of chilling, cooling, cooking and baking time so you’ll have to make sure you give yourself enough time. I think the best way to split it up is to make the candied pumpkin seeds and do both parts of making and chilling the crust (see below) on the night before, and then bake the crust, make the caramel, make the filling and bake it the day of.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your family and friends! I am so thankful for my family and the blessing of being able to come home for this holiday. Enjoy this holiday season!

Bourbon-Caramel Pumpkin Pie
Makes one 9-inch pie, serving ~10
Recipe adapted slightly from FineCooking

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Seeds:
1 1/2 teaspoons maple syrup
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup raw, hulled pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

Crust:
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons fine cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk

Caramel:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup bourbon

Pumpkin Filling:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup half-and-half

Directions:

Candy the pumpkin seeds:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and position a rack in bottom third of oven. Line a small baking sheet with wax paper.

2. In a small bowl, stir together the maple syrup, sugar, and salt. Add the pumpkin seeds and stir until evenly coated (add more maple syrup if needed). Spread them out in a single layer on prepared baking sheet and bake for 7 minutes. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes to let them harden and then break them up into small pieces and set aside. (Can make up to 24 hours ahead – store in an air-tight container at room temperature.)

Prepare Crust:
1. In a food processor, pulse the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt a few times to combine. Add the butter and pulse until mixture looks like coarse meal.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, egg yolk and one tablespoon of ice water. Add egg mixture to food processor and pulse until mixture begins to come together, adding another tablespoon or two of ice water if needed. Gather dough into a ball and press slightly to form a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. After dough disk has chilled, lightly flour a work surface and roll dough out on it, into a 13-inch circle. Transfer to springform pan. I like to carefully begin to roll the dough back onto the rolling and then slide the springform pan under it and unroll dough into the pan. Press gently into bottom rim and up the sides, tearing off any pieces so that the height is about 1/2-inch below the rim of the pan. The edge should look ragged. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.

4. After dough in pie pan has chilled, preheat oven to 350 degrees and position a rack in bottom third of oven. Prick bottom of crust with a fork at 1-inch intervals, line it with foil and fill it to the top with dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and beans and return pan to oven to bake for 10 more minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes and keep the oven on.

Make Caramel:
1. While pie is cooling, make the caramel. Combine the brown sugar, butter and salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar melts and begins to darken around the edges, about 7 minutes. (Use the time I give as a general reference but caramel is finicky so pay attention to what it should look like before moving on, instead of following the time strictly.) Slowly whisk in the cream and simmer, whisking occasionally, until the caramel has thickened, so that the whisk leaves the bottom of the pan visible when pulled through, about 15 minutes. Whisk in the bourbon and simmer again until caramel has thickened and the whisk leaves the bottom of the pan visible again, 2-5 minutes.

2. Pour 1/3 cup of the caramel over the bottom of the cooled crust and tilt the pan around to spread it evenly. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes to set the caramel while leaving the remaining caramel at room temperature.

Make Filling and Bake:
1. In a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 1-1/2 minutes. Add the egg and egg yolk, beating well until combined. Add the pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt and mix until thoroughly combined. Finally, slowly mix in the half-and-half.

2. Pour the filling into the crust and bake for 40 minutes, or until the surface no longer appears wet. Cool on a rack for about 20 minutes.

To Finish:
1. Warm remaining caramel so it is pourable. Drizzle caramel over cooled pumpkin and spread evenly. Carefully arrange pumpkin seeds around edge of pie. Let sit for 15 minutes to allow caramel to set and then remove springform ring to serve. Alternatively, you can chill it for 4-24 hours before serving (and serve cold) but I enjoyed it best when it was warm and gooey.

Deep Dish Apple Pie

May 26, 2013 by Mackenzie

Sunday was quite the day in the kitchen! Not only did we make this gnocchi in tomato vegetable sauce, this roasted beets and root vegetable salad with quinoa, homemade granola, and focaccia bread – but we also made this deep dish apple pie! And my oh my, what a pie!

I’ve made quite a few apple pies in my time. Apple pie is a staple at our Thanksgiving and it’s probably one of my favorite desserts – so I’ve made a fair amount of apple pies! However, I believe this pie has easily defeated any of its other competitors – in sheer size and of course, deliciousness.

This pie is made in a springform pan instead of a regular pie dish, which allows this pie to be deep and the filling to be almost double a normal-sized pie. Because it is such a large pie, it takes quite a while to bake – about an hour and a half – but the wait is more than worth it!

Although it is quite the pie, it isn’t too heavy since the top is just a streusel crumble rather than a second layer of pie crust. I added rolled oats to the streusel because one, I love oats, and two, it gave it an apple crisp twist – which is another apple dessert that I love.

Deep Dish Apple Pie
Serves 12-16
Recipe from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

Pie dough:

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
16 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and diced
1/2 cup ice cold water

Directions:

1. In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour, sugar and salt and pulse to combine. Add the diced butter and pulse just until you have pea-sized pieces of dough. Transfer to a large bowl.

2. Drizzle the water over the dry mixture and work it together with your hands. Knead briefly then form into a large disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for two hours.

Apple pie:

Ingredients:

1 recipe of above pie crust

Filing:
4 lbs apples, 1/2 green apples and 1/2 Fuji apples
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Streusel topping:
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoon butter, melted

Vanilla ice cream

Directions:

1. Prepare crust: coat a 9-inch springform pan with oil. On a floured surface, roll out chilled pie crust into a 16-inch round – 1/4 inch think. My trick to getting a rolled out pie crust into the pan is to roll it back over the rolling pin and then slide your arm under it and then you should be able to lift the whole thing up and transfer it to the springform pan! Trim the overhang to one inch, crimp edges and then place the dish into the fridge while you prepare the apples.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Peel, core and chop apples into bite-sized pieces. Place them all into a large bowl and drizzle with the lemon juice. In a separate small bowl, whisk the sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and then mix into apples.

3. Spoon apples into prepared crust and spread them as flat and evenly as possible. Bake pie for 30 minutes (if the tips of the apples begin to brown and burn, cover the top with foil).

4. While pie is baking, make the streusel topping. In a medium bowl, stir together sugar, cinnamon, salt, flour, oats and baking powder. Pour in the melted butter and mix to combine. Stick in freezer until pie has baked for 30 minutes.

5. After 30 minutes, remove the pie from the oven, decrease the oven temperature to 325 and then spoon the streusel onto the top of the pie – pressing gently into apples. Return to the oven and bake for an additional hour. Cover with foil if the streusel begins to brown too quickly.

6. When the pie has finished baking, remove it from the oven and let cool to lukewarm. Run a knife around the crust to loosen the edges from the pan. Carefully loosen the clamp on the springform and slide it over the top and off the pie. The pie slices best when chilled in the fridge, but warm pie and ice cream just can’t be beat. Take your pick and enjoy this tall and proud creation!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

May 2, 2013 by Mackenzie

My college church group had a pie bake-off last week at our end-of-semester party. I made this strawberry rhubarb pie and took 2nd place (to a delicious blackberry pie!)!

There were two strawberry rhubarb pies at our party, mine more on the sweet side and the other on the tart side. The other recipe was from Smitten Kitchen if you’re looking for a tart pie but I loved the sweet taste of this one! It still had a tart flavor from the rhubarb but was less significant – it was a perfect combination!

I also got a lot of compliments on the crust! I used a recipe from a New York Times bake-off and adapted it slightly. It was perfectly flakey and buttery and delicious!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Makes one pie
Crust adapted from The New York Times and pie recipe from Food Network

Ingredients:
Crust:
1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/8 teaspoon table salt
15 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces

Pie:
2 1/2 cups chopped fresh red rhubarb
2 1/2 cups washed, de-stemmed and halved strawberries (big strawberries can be in thirds)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons minute tapioca
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter, cubed small
1 egg white, beaten with 1 teaspoon water
Turbinado sugar

Directions:
1. Prepare crust: In a food processor, pulse together the flour and salt. Add butter and pulse until pea-sized bits form. Add 3-6 tablespoons ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time and pulse until dough begins to come together in a ball. Separate the dough into two balls, one with 2/3 of the dough and the other with 1/3 of the dough. Wrap disks in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or up to three days.

2. Roll out large disk for the bottom crust. Transfer to pie plate. Chill in refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

3. Filling: In a large bowl, mix the rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, tapioca (dry), flour, zest, juice, cinnamon and vanilla. Pour into chilled crust. Dot the cubes of butter on top of the filling. Roll out top layer and place over filling. Crimp to seal edges. (Or make a lattice or use biscuit cutters to make a circle design). Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Make a foil collar so prevent the edges from burning. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes then decrease temperature to 375 degrees and bake for an additional 45-50 minutes. Let cool before serving.

Mackenzie

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