I am throwing a friend of mine a baby shower this Saturday. Since it's pretty much mandatory that there is a dessert at baby shower, I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. Turns out she doesn't like cake. Does she like pie? Why yes! Any particular kind of pie? Pie with berries in it!
Ok. Pies. Berry pie. Um...turns out I have no idea where in this town to buy pie [2]. If we still had a Baker's Square, I would have gone with that. But I really have no idea how Perkins pies or Bob Evans pies are, and I really don't want to have store-bought pie. Especially berry pie. It just doesn't seem like it would be that tasty.
So how hard could it be to make a pie?
Well...
I have, very wisely I think, decided to make practice pies. I made my first practice pie on Sunday, left it at home yesterday, but remembered to bring it to work today. I had an issue with the crust: mostly, the recipe told me I should use a food processor. I don't have a food processor. Turns out I probably could have just done it with a fork, but that seemed complicated. So I forwent the crust. And put it in a square pan. Tjett refused to refer to it as a pie. I liked to call it a "pie".
The berry filling was pretty tasting. I used frozen berries, that happened to already be sweetened, and used about half of the remaining sugar the recipe called for. And tapioca, as a filler.
It had a streusel topping. It looked oh-so-pretty when I put it together, but sometime in baking it all fell into the "pie" and I was left with a streusel island.
The verdict: Not bad, but could use improvement.
Tonight is attempt #2. Same filling (except I used more sugar since apparently Schnucks brand frozen berries are unsweetened). Same topping...except that I'm going to let the pie bake for 20-odd minutes before putting it on. I'm considering broiling it for about 5 seconds at the end, just to try to get the topping crunchy and nice. I might totally f up the pie. But that's why it's a practice pie, yes? Also, there is a crust. While there were rave reviews for the crust, I decided to go with Jiffy pie crust mix. While there was some love put into it (and I couldn't find 'regular' pre-made pie crust), it's easier than the crust recipe. And I have it on good authority that adding a little butter to it makes it super-awesome. And if this doesn't work out, I'll try a shortbread pre-made crust.
The boys in my lab should be happy.
[1] In high school marching band we did Appalachian Spring. One of our drum majors used to sing/instruct "I am the lord of the dance, right close." Oh Benny...
[2]If you ever happen to drive through western Wisconsin on....I-90, maybe?, make a stop in Osseo. It's a tiny tiny town almost exactly 2 hours east of my hometown; about an hour and a half east of the MN/WI border. The restaurant/bakery is called the Norske Nook. They have really good food, and the BEST pie. And the receipts say 'pop' on them. And all the waitresses (some of whom I recognize from stopping there every year with my family on vacation...they stick around!) wear these cute Norwegian dresses.
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