Pies Before Guys
Page 27
2½ lbs baking apples (e.g., Fuji or Granny Smith), peeled, cored, and sliced quarter-inch thick (you should end up with approximately 7 cups)
1 recipe salted-caramel sauce (see below)
Sea salt (optional)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 T whipping cream
1 T coarse sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Unroll one piecrust into a 9-inch pie plate. On a lightly floured surface unroll the remaining crust.
For the filling, combine the flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Place the sliced apples in a large bowl and sprinkle the flour mixture over the apples, tossing to coat. Spoon about one-third of the mixture in the piecrust-lined pie plate. Drizzle roughly 2 T of the salted-caramel sauce over the apples. Repeat with the remaining thirds and salted-caramel sauce two more times. Sprinkle with a pinch or two of sea salt if desired. Set the remaining salted-caramel sauce aside.
Combine the egg and whipping cream in another small bowl. Lightly brush the edge of piecrust with the egg mixture. Cover the pie with the second crust and pinch the two crusts together. Lightly brush the top of the pie with the remaining egg mixture. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
To protect the crust’s edge from overbrowning, cover the edges with aluminum foil or pie shields.
Place the pie on the oven’s middle rack. Since there’s a good chance the filling will overflow a bit, to protect your oven (and your sanity), line a baking sheet with foil and place it on the rack beneath the pie to catch any drips.
Bake the pie for 30 minutes and remove the foil or pie shield from the crust. Bake for another 20 to 35 minutes or until the top crust is golden.
Remove the pie from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Serve with the remaining salted-caramel sauce. (Note: If the caramel sauce hardens before serving, reheat on high for 30–60 seconds in a microwave-safe bowl covered with wax paper.)
Salted-Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
1 14-oz pkg vanilla caramels, unwrapped
½ C whipping cream
1 tsp sea salt
Directions
Heat and stir unwrapped caramels, whipping cream, and sea salt in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove from heat.
Chocolate Cream Pie
Val can’t use an Oreo crust in Pie Town, because Charlene would revolt. But when she makes a chocolate cream pie for herself, at home, she goes full chocolate crust. Here’s her private chocolate crust recipe.
Crust
25 Oreos
5 T melted butter
Pulse Oreos in a food processor until you can’t see any of the white filling. Drizzle the melted butter over the Oreo crumbs and mix.
Pour the crumbs into a pie tin and press into a crust shape with your fingers. (Note: You can use any flavor Oreos for a piecrust if you want to go wild. But for this pie, I recommended the “regular” chocolate flavor.)
Filling
½ C unsweetened chocolate chips, plus more for topping
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 C heavy whipping cream
¼ C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
Place chocolate chips in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl. Heat on half power in the microwave in 30-second increments (so it doesn’t burn). Stir between each heating increment, until the chocolate chips are melted and smooth.
Add sweetened condensed milk to the chocolate and stir. Set the chocolate mixture aside.
Beat the heavy whipping cream, slowly adding the powdered sugar and vanilla, until stiff peaks form.
Fold half the whipped-cream mixture into the chocolate mixture. Pour/scoop into the prepared piecrust. Top the pie with the remaining whipped cream. Garnish with chocolate sprinkles if desired.
Chill the pie for at least 2 hours before serving. Store the pie in the refrigerator, keeping the pie loosely covered.
Asparagus-and-Mushroom Quiche
Ingredients
1 lb asparagus, bottoms of the stems trimmed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
6 oz sliced button mushrooms
¾ C onion, coarsely chopped
1 refrigerated pre-made piecrust
4 oz Emmentaler or Gruyère cheese, shredded
4 eggs
¾ C half-and-half
1 T yellow mustard
1 tsp fresh or dried thyme
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp fresh or dried parsley
tsp nutmeg
tsp ground black pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Boil the asparagus, mushrooms, and onion for four minutes. Drain the vegetables.
While the vegetables are boiling, unroll the piecrust and press it into a 9-inch pie or cake pan.
Place the asparagus, mushrooms, and onion on top of the unbaked crust. Top with shredded cheese.
Mix the remaining ingredients in a large bowl and pour the mixture over the cheese and vegetables.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until firm. Cool briefly before eating.
Choco-Peanut-Butter Pie
Crust
25 Oreos (or peanut butter–flavored Oreos, if you can find them)
5 T melted butter
Filling
1 3.9-oz pkg chocolate-flavored instant pudding
2 C cold milk, divided in half
4 oz (½ of an 8-oz pkg) cream cheese, softened
1 3.4-oz pkg vanilla-flavored instant pudding
¼ C plus 3 T creamy peanut butter, plus 1 T for serving
2 C thawed whipped cream, divided in half
1 heaping T semisweet chocolate chips (for drizzling over the top of the pie)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Pulse 25 Oreos in a food processor until you can’t see any of the white filling. Drizzle melted butter over the Oreo crumbs and mix.
Pour the crumbs into a pie tin and press into a crust shape with your fingers.
Bake the crust for 5–7 minutes, until it is set. Remove the piecrust from the oven and set aside to cool completely. (You can turn off the oven now.)
Beat the chocolate pudding mix and 1 C milk for two minutes until thickened. Spread the mixture onto the bottom of the cooled crust with a spatula or wide spoon. In a large bowl, blend the remaining 1 cup milk and cream cheese, beating constantly with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the dry vanilla pudding mix and beat for two more minutes.
Not including the 1 T of the peanut butter for serving, add the peanut butter to the vanilla pudding mixture. Beat the entire mixture until the peanut butter is well blended. Add 1 C whipped cream and gently fold it into the vanilla–peanut butter mix. Spread the entire mixture over the chocolate pudding layer to within one inch of the piecrust’s edge. Top the pie with the remaining 1 C whipped cream, bringing the cream to the edge of the piecrust to create a mounded shape.
Refrigerate the pie for three hours.
You’re almost ready to eat! But since Father’s Day is special, this pie needs a little decorating....
Just before serving, microwave the remaining 1 T peanut butter in a microwaveable bowl on high for 15 seconds or until it’s melted when stirred. Melt the chocolate chips as directed on the pkg. Drizzle the melted peanut butter and next the melted chocolate over the pie.
Love the Pie Town mysteries?
Keep reading for a peek at
GOURD TO DEATH
for the continuing adventures of Val and the Baker Street Bakers.
Coming soon from
Kirsten Weiss
and
Kensington Books
CHAPTER 1
All it takes is one bad impulse.
In my defense, I’d had a late night of sexy aliens and pitched battles. So my impulse control was low this morning.
But...
Going along to get a
long to get-it-over-with was still a bad impulse. I was ditching work on what could be the busiest day of the year. My staff needed me. Pie Town needed me.
The thuds of hammers and clangs of metal on metal drifted through the pre-dawn fog. It shrouded Main Street, hiding the workers setting up festival stalls.
Yawning, I jammed my hands into the pockets of my winter-weight Pie or Die hoodie and hesitated guiltily in the doorway of my pie shop. The scent of baking pumpkin escaped Pie Town’s open door and wafted into the chill October air.
“I can take only ten minutes,” I said through another jaw-cracking yawn. Pie Town was still a startup, and I loved it like a helicopter mom. But I couldn’t ruin Charlene’s fun. “Then I need to get back to the prep work.”
My elderly piecrust specialist, Charlene McCree, pulled the ends of her snowy hair from her jacket collar. “You work twelve-hour days, Val. No one’s going to hold it against you if you take a peek. You won’t get much chance when the festival’s in full swing. Relax.”
In a blur of purple knit jacket, she surged past me and onto the brick sidewalk. We’d both been up until midnight watching a Stargate marathon, and it was now five a.m. Charlene claimed old people didn’t need much sleep. I felt like deep-fried death.
“Last year,” she said, “the winning pumpkin was over two-thousand pounds. This year’s would have been bigger if those arms dealers hadn’t chiseled in on the action.”
Hiding a smile, I let Pie Town’s glass door swing shut behind us. Charlene might be the best piecrust maker on the NorCal coast, but I’d learned the hard way not to encourage her. “You know San Adrian isn’t infested with gun runners.”
But Saint Adrian was the patron saint of weapons dealers. The town’s true crime, however, was starting a pumpkin festival to rival San Nicholas’s. Farmers now had to choose between San Adrian and us. Our tiny beach town was feeling the pinch.
“You don’t understand pumpkin festivals,” she said darkly.
I yawned again and flipped up my hood, orange and black for Halloween.
Ray, a gamer who usually staked out one of Pie Town’s corner tables, waved from beneath a festival booth’s green awning. “Hey, Val! Hi, Charlene.”
We ambled to his booth, one of dozens lining the middle of the street.
“Nice socks,” he said.
Charlene pointed the toe of one of her high-tops, modeling the striped purple and black socks. They nipped at the hems of her matching purple leggings. “Thanks. I got ’em on sale.”
I eyed the comic art hanging against the green canvas walls. “You drew these?” I asked, impressed.
Ray’s round face flushed. His freckles darkened. “Well—”
His girlfriend, Henrietta, popped up from behind a stack of boxes. “They’re all his. Isn’t he amazing?” She tugged down her shapeless army-green sweatshirt. It matched the color of the knit cap flattening her sandy hair. “I told him he should work as an artist for a gaming company, but he’s set on being an engineer.”
Charlene squinted at a cartoon woman in a chain-mail bikini. “Looks uncomfortable. If I was going into battle, I’d want a lot more covered than those two—”
“It all looks great,” I interrupted. Age had dulled Charlene’s verbal restraint. If my friend had ever had any.
“And don’t worry,” Ray said. “I’ll be sure to send customers into Pie Town.”
Charlene laughed hollowly. “I don’t think that will be a problem. This is my fiftieth pumpkin festival. They’re wolves, I tell you. Wolves!”
Henrietta’s eyes twinkled. “Werewolves?”
“Don’t encourage her.” I groaned, knowing it was too late. Charlene was convinced a local pastor was a werewolf. She also believed Bigfoot roamed the woods, ghost jaguars stalked the streets, and UFOs buzzed the California coast.
“I was speaking metaphorically,” Charlene said, surprising me. “I meant the festivalgoers act like wolves. Though if I were you, I’d keep an eye on Pastor Hiller around the full moon. Not that he can help himself, poor man. Once you’ve been bitten, it’s all over.”
And there it was. “It was great seeing you two,” I said. “We’re going to check out those giant pumpkins, and then I’m going back to work.” We’d left my staff slaving in the kitchen while Charlene and I scoped out the massive gourds. I wasn’t sure how much pie we’d sell today, during the pre-festival, but I didn’t want to take any risks.
“Speak for yourself,” Charlene said. “I’ve already completed my piecrust quota. See ya, Ray. Bye, Henrietta.”
We ambled two booths down, and I stopped in front of another green awning. A sign hanging from the top read, HEIDI’s HEALTH AND FITNESS. Directly beneath it: SUGAR KILLS.
I sighed. “Seriously? At a pumpkin festival?” The gym had moved in next to Pie Town earlier this year. Its owner and I had a loathe-hate relationship.
Heidi turned to me, and her blond brows drew downward. “Sugar kills every day of the year.”
“So does life,” Charlene said.
Heidi tossed her ponytail. “Your life might be longer and more fulfilling if it included a better diet and exercise.”
“I’m fit as a fiddle.” Charlene thumped her chest and coughed alarmingly. “I eat what I want, and I stop when I’m full. And I have a drink every night for my heart. It’s the French way.”
Heidi’s lip curled. “We’re offering blood pressure and other fitness testing. You should stop by.” She eyed me critically. “Especially you.”
My eyes narrowed. I was not overweight.
She smoothed the front of her sleek and sporty Heidi’s Health and Fitness microfiber jacket. “You’re going to have some competition at the pie-making contest.”
“I’m not competing, I’m a judge.” Not that judging didn’t have its own pressures. My boyfriend, Gordon Carmichael, had entered the pie contest. He was a good cook, and it was a blind tasting, but still. And then there was old Mrs. Thistle-blossom. She won every year, and I was super curious about her pumpkin pie. What was her secret? I’d never met the woman, but I’d heard she was over a hundred.
“I don’t think it’s fair for a professional baker to be in the contest,” Heidi said.
I pulled my mouth into a tight smile. “Which is why I’m not in it. I’m a judge.”
“Well, I am entering a sugar-free pumpkin pie,” Heidi said. “It’s low-fat and low-calorie.”
What was the point? But I decided to be the better woman and refrained from comment.
Charlene had no such compunction. “And low-taste?” She squinted at my hips. “Though some of us could stand to lose a little weight.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my weight,” I said. “And don’t tell me anything more, Heidi. This is a blind tasting.”
“Most of the calories are in the crust anyway,” Heidi said, “so it will be crust-free.”
“What!” Charlene flared. “Then it will definitely be taste-free.”
“But now,” I ground out, “I can’t judge your pie, because it won’t be a blind tasting.” And I was going to have to report this to the head judge. San Nicholas took its pie contest deadly serious.
“Your style of pies are on their way out,” Heidi said. “Tastes are changing. Most Californians find all that sweet food gross.”
“Enjoy the festival,” I caroled and walked on, hoping Charlene would follow. My pies on the way out. As if! Had she even met a Silicon Valley engineer?
In the stall beside Heidi’s, a handsome, harried-looking man unpacked boxes of reading glasses. White earbud cords dangled from his ears and faded to invisibility against his white lab coat.
Charlene nodded to the man in the optometry stall. “Morning, Tristan.”
He looked up and tugged an earbud from his skull. “Oh. Hi!”
“What are you listening to?” Charlene asked.
He blushed. “Oklahoma!” he said in a sultry Southern drawl. I might be a one-man gal, but I could listen to him talk all day.
Charlene chuckled benignly. “You and your show tunes.”
“Have you seen Kara—I mean, Dr. Levant?” he asked.
We shook our heads.
“Why?” Charlene asked.
“She was going to help me set up for the pre-festival.” He motioned around the half-built stall. “I guess she got hung up at the haunted house.”
“What’s she doing there?” Charlene asked.
“Her husband, Elon, is volunteering there today.”
“If we see her,” I said, “we’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”
Charlene and I continued on.
“I hear Heidi broke up with that fellow who left you at the altar,” she said in a casual tone.
“Mark didn’t leave me—Wait, really?” I had been dumped, though not at the altar. We’d been months away from the wedding. But Mark had done me a favor. Now I had a new and improved boyfriend, Detective Gordon Carmichael of the SNPD. My chest tingled at the thought.
I glanced over my shoulder. The booths and Pie Town had vanished into the mist, and I shivered. “We need to hurry,” I said. “I really should get back soon.”
“Those pies will bake without you. Your first pumpkin festival is a special event. There’s something magical about a giant pumpkin. Maybe it’s because they’re not supposed to be that big. But when you see them, anything seems possible. You can believe a pumpkin might actually turn into a coach.”
I grimaced. “Or the Pie Town staff might riot.”
“Never.”
Charlene was right. The people who worked at Pie Town were easygoing and professional. That was exactly why I didn’t want to take advantage.
“I don’t know what you’re worried about,” she continued. “With the street closed off to cars for the decorating today, business is going to be slow.”
I jammed my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. “I hope not.” The festival didn’t officially begin until tomorrow. But for years, Friday had been its unofficial start. It gave stores and vendors an early jump on sales while the street was closed to traffic.