Chocolate Avocado - Week #22

There was a mixed bag of opinions on this pie. I have to admit, I really had my reservations before, during, and after making it. Since this pie, like last week, was a request, I had not really thought about it before but figured I would just go for it and let the chips fall where they may. They fell.

I found quite a number of different pies all claiming to be the quintessential chocolate avocado. In the end, I decided to go with the very simplest (and believe me, it is simple). I ended up making this pie. The author there, however, used a four letter word (at least in this space), however when she mentioned a store bought crust. Oh, the humanity! Anyone who has hung around this blog for any length of time knows that store bought is strictly an anathema in this adventure. So, I made a scratch graham cracker crust and filled it with three avocados, a bag of Hershey's Special Dark chips and 1/3 cup of sugar. I was sincerely hoping that the minimalist architecture would result in a pie that I really liked.

Nope.

I will confess to not being a big fan of the avocado (vegetable? fruit?). Some of the other taste testers (I won't mention names; they're all just guinea pigs to me anyway) enjoyed it a great deal more than I did. My daughter helped construct this one, just like last week. Once again, she liked the end result and once again was disappointed when she got one piece and then the rest of it disappeared to be consumed at work. So, I owe her a pie that stays at home. One of these weeks.

Of those partaking, most did not seem to dislike this one nearly as much as I did -- i.e the mixed bag. Most -- not all -- of the work crowd approved (or at least were too kind to tell me they hated it). At home, as I noted above, it got two thumbs up from my daughter, a grubby thumbs up from my one-year-old -- who will apparently eat anything -- and a mad dash to the sink to spit it out from my wife. If it weren't for my delicate sensibilities I may have done the same.

I stand firmly behind my opinion that of the pies so far that were executed correctly, this was the worst. Believe me, that makes it far from the worst overall. I did have an additional half slice after it had set for a day, and it was better after having the extra time. That, and the prevailing opinion, probably bumped it up a couple of notches in the rankings. Still, I would not ever eat it on purpose again. If there was a redeeming quality, it was that the combination of avocado and chocolate gave the filling an extremely rich, creamy texture. Not enough to overcome the aftertaste, though. At least not for me.

Here are some pictures. It is reasonably pretty. The avocado/chocolate combination resulted in a nice color along with the texture (two redeeming qualities, I guess).

Next Week's Pie

Melanie of incessant badgering about cheesecake and peanut butter cup pie fame is going to be in town for the weekend. Since now, for all of her talk, she seems unable to come up with a flavor, I am going to remake a flawed past recipe, the grasshopper pie. And, since every week needs to include a new pie, a third consecutive week of guinea pig requests: Pineapple.

Enjoy your week, rest well and dream of large women. Any takers on that one?

Dirt Pie - Week #21

The "dirt" pie was pretty simple, but significant -- at least in the annals of this blog -- nonetheless.  This was the first pie that was not based on a recipe that I found somewhere, or some amalgamation of several recipes.  Instead, it was/is a Simple Simon original.  I will attempt to put a recipe of sorts at the bottom of this post.  If it doesn't turn out for you, you can assume one of several possibilities is true:

1. It's all a lie, and that isn't really the recipe
   
2. It's not technically a lie, but I've forgotten how I made it
   
3. It wasn't that good in the first place
   
4. You really can't bake
   

Just as a hint, it aint the last one.  This was actually pretty easy.  It had better be.  My skills have improved significantly over the past 20+ weeks, but it is still a crap-shoot every week.  More importantly, making up the recipe introduces a whole new treasure chest of ways for me to screw up.  Here's to me trying some more real soon!

I actually was pretty happy with how this pie turned out to look.  There's only so much elegance and refinement one can perceive when looking at a pie with a couple of discolored gummy worms on it, but nonetheless.

As far as taste, I think it is firmly in the middle of the pack.  The work crowd seemed to like it (even the always difficult -- in every conceivable way -- J.S., the requestor).  My co-baker on this one, my daughter, was at least a little bit upset that this one disappeared from the refrigerator after only getting one piece.  I am taking that as a good sign on the homefront.  All-in-all, I am going to call it a success.  Heaven knows I have plenty of marks in the opposite column.

The required pictures:

The crust was made from multiple materials to try to make it look like sand.  I was really happy with the visual outcome, but the corners ended up really thick, dense, and borderline impenetrable with your average fork.  I claim the look was more important anyway.

A combination of chocolate cream cookies and vanilla wafers crushed over the top.  Whipped cream in the middle

A slice.  The worms really give it the fine-dining look I was hoping for.

A recipe of sorts:

Crust

Ingredients

1/2 cup finely crushed graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup finely crushed vanilla wafer crumbs

1/2 cup finely crushed chocolate wafer crumbs

1/3 cup white sugar

6 tablespoons butter, melted

Preparation

1. Mix the cookie crumbs thoroughly with the sugar
   
2. Add the melted butter, mixing completely
   
3. Smash the crap out of the resulting mixture into a 9" pie plate -- I actually added a little extra of everything and used a deep dish plate.
   
4. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Filling

Ingredients

2 cups milk (divided into 1 1/2 cup and 1/2 cup)

1/3 cup flour

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 tbsp butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy whipping cream

6 chocolate cream cookies

6 vanilla wafers

1/4 cup roughly chopped pecans

Preparation

1. Crush the cookies and vanilla wafers into a coarse blend
   
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, eggs and 1/2 cup milk in a medium bowl
   
3. Bring 1 1/2 cups milk to a boil in a medium saucepan
   
4. Stir in the chocolate chips, stirring until smooth completely melted
   
5. Slowly add the flour mixture to the boiling milk, stirring continuously until the mixture boils and thickens noticeably
   
6. Add the butter and vanilla, stirring until completely incorporated
   

Assembly

1. Spread the pecans and some additional chocolate ships (if desired) over the bottom of the cooled crust.
   
2. Spread just enough of the pudding-like mixture prepared above into the crust to cover the nuts
   
3. Press a piece of plastic wrap onto the pudding mixture and allow to cool completely
   
4. Once the pudding is cooled, whip the cup of whipping cream into whipped cream
   
5. Gently fold the whipped cream and pudding mixture together
   
6. Spread 1/2 of that mixture into the crust
   
7. Sprinkle some of the coarse cookie crumb mixture over that
   
8. Repeat
   

I am pretty sure that is it.  If not, please be assured it is not malicious intent, but old age that caused any discrepancies.  Also, since I am not really much of an original, parts of this filling recipe are certainly begged, borrowed and stolen, but it is more of a composite than anything.  I can not really point to a source or two.

Pie of the week - Week #22

By request for the second week in a row.  An odd sounding selection, but I have already done a little bit of research and there are plenty of recipes to choose from...

Chocolate Avocado.

I am assuming that the flavor is chocolate and the texture avocado, but I guess we will have to see.  If not, it won't rank well for me.

Regional Pies - Week #19 & #20

A quick post on the two regional pies of the past two weeks.

The Shoofly pie has Pennsylvania Dutch origins and was very interesting.  It is a lot like a molasses cookie or cake even inside of a pastry crust.  The flavor comes nearly entirely from the molasses, which is fine by me, but could certainly be a turn off.  The other really interesting thing about it is that it is a wet-bottom pie.  Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of that aspect,  but the bottom crust and the filling really meld together into a gooey, sticky sludge.  It is definitely different from the norm, and I would make it again.

I think the execution of the Shoofly pie was pretty good.  The only real mistake was that I tried to make the crust with as little water as possible.  I used vodka, as usual, but less than normal.  It produced a very flaky crust, but it had no structure or strength whatsoever, so as soon as I tried to get it out of the pie plate, it fell apart.  Ah well, another lesson.  At least it tasted good.

Here is the pie, before baking.  The filling is really, really thin, which I think leads to it really soaking into the bottom crust and producing the wet-bottom.

And, a slice.  Note the broken crust.  You can see the consistency of the filling to a certain extent.  It really is cake-like.  Unfortunately, you can't really see or appreciate the bottom layer.  Anyone who is really interested will have to make their own, I guess.

Chess or Crack pie was the second week's regional pie.  This is a Southern pie that has piles of variations, based on this same basic recipe with eggs, cream, corn meal and loads of sugar.  I think I got more comments in person and through email about "crack" pie.  If this blog wasn't so effective at exposing my immaturity, I could probably launch into some diatribe, but it is... and I am, so I found it all pretty humorous.

Here is a shot of the pie, pre-baked.

And, after baking.  The picture does not do it justice, but there was a pretty significant crack right down the middle.  The first few minutes of high heat create a nice thin layer of hardened sugar (caramelized?) and that cracks over time.  It lived up to the name.

My recommendation, if I get to give one...  Of course I get to give one!  It is my blog, so I can give any unsolicited, incorrect advice that I want.  So, the advice is to make sure to wait for this pie to completely cool.  It wasn't totally set up when I cut the piece below, and the next day the texture was much better.

As far as flavor, the Chess pie is flavored like... sugar.  That is all that is in there, so there isn't much choice.  I intend to make at least one more variation at some point in the next thirty-two weeks.  Time will tell which one.

Have a great week.  Dream of dirt pie.  Seriously, J.S., if you're reading this, who above the age of eight requests a dirt pie?  We'll call it a guilty pleasure.

Pie of the week - Week #21

A stretch, I know, but I got a request this week for Dirt pie, so some version of a dirt pie is this week's flavor.  I am hoping I can find something a little bit more interesting than Jell-O pudding and gummy worms, but if that's what it comes to, so be it.  I had a second recommendation this week as well, and it is a doozy.  But, you have to wait.