Pie Practice

It is probably time to post something most exciting than growing grass and windmills, but not just yet.  Time to talk about my next favorite thing - homemaking activities.  Since I will be hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner this year, I am starting baking practice early - with plenty of time to mess up and re-do.  I absolutely love baking, but I have never ever made a pie, and pie at Thanksgiving is required.  Thank goodness for helpful blogs discussing types of pie crusts, tips and techniques of rolling pie crusts, and what to do when the pie crust goes wrong.  I followed the guidance of smittenkitchen.com (thanks Julie!) and have to say, I was not disappointed with my results, but I guess the real truth will come tomorrow during the tasting!  (I'll keep you posted).  I know you're dying to know how I made this beautiful pie and where I messed up.  I'm excited to share!


1.  Nothing is better than homemade pie crust.  The buttery, flakey, deliciousness that lines the top and bottom of the pie, yum.  I see no reason to buy store-bought, ready-made pie crust and call the pie homemade.  So, since I decided to go for the entire made from scratch look, I decided to ditch the love of my life, my candy apple red kitchen aid, and go with the cute, simple little pastry blender.  I am not very good about reading directions, but the dough still came out okay despite the fact that I forgot to add the million little pieces of the before mixing everything else together!  I was so surprised how simple this all-butter crust was to mix in a short 5 minutes.  

2.  While my pie crust was chilling in the refrigerator, I started making my filling.  For my first pie attempt, I chose apple pie.  Maybe before I started cutting the apples, it would have been a good idea to think about the best way to cut the apples.  I'm still not so sure.  I ended up cutting them into pieces instead of slices, and it took a long time.  They are probably still too big.  Oh well.  This part was kind of boring, I'll just show you and move on.

3.  Get out your rolling pin!  This was the most anticipated part and my most favorite part of the entire pie-making experience (yes, it truly was an experience).  I was so excited to put on my apron, dust off my rolling pin and flour my counter top.  I successfully rolled out the bottom pie crust and moved it to the pie dish without any of the disastrous pie-crust catastrophes happening.  (I had a feeling that my sugar cookie rolling past would come in handy!)  Feeeew, almost there.  I poured in the apple filling, rolled out another successful crust and topped the pie.  Ah ha, masterpiece!  I don't really need to tell you about the actual baking process, because the oven really did all the work.  So now, presenting the star of the show... 

Hopefully a delicious apple pie.  Happy baking to you!