Better... - Week #18

This week, I begged my wife to pick a pie flavor for me, since I have done miserably in both selection and execution for several weeks in a row.  She chose (based on I have no idea what) Lemon-Raspberry.  As it turns out, there are many, many recipes available, unlike the mango pies of the world.

The most interesting thing about this pie is that is made on a shortbread crust.  I did not even know what that was, so I went out and bought a box of Lorna Doones, assuming it was a crumb crust.  But, no.  Instead, it is a butter cookie that you smash into a pie plate.  I ended up using a user's variation on this recipe.  Overall it turned out okay, tasted fine, but the corners were too thick and were hard to get a fork through.

Here's a picture of the baked crust.

The filling was more institutional that most.   The lemon flavor was largely from the boxed pudding (although, along with the prescribed lemon zest, I squeezed half a lemon in).  In most of my prior pies, I have tried to use raw ingredients when I could.  This one was a little bit more "out-of-a-box."  Even still, I liked some things about the overall recipe a lot, including that it had whole raspberries on both the bottom (along with some raspberry jame) and the top of the pie.  The picture on the recipe's site made that look really nice.  My effort, however... not so much.

Up until this point, things seemed just fine.

But, by the time we got to the eating stage, the raspberries -- and much of the jam -- had floated toward the outer edge.  I think the taste was still the same, but the presentation suffered.  Paula Deen tells me that you eat first with your eyes, so I'll have to work on that!

It definitely looked okay as a whole pie, but suffered when cut.

All in all, I liked it.  It is a definite middle-of-the-pack kind of pie.  A solid improvement over the last two weeks.

Upgraded blog stuff you may or may not notice.

• The slideshow in the upper right now includes captions (thanks for the tip, jj)
  
• The rankings finally have numbers assigned to them.  I did not ever find a widget, but instead actually thought about it for five minutes and realized how to do it.  Not my strong suit, this thinking.
  

Next week's pie forthcoming...