Yuck! - Week 16

Awful, horrible, disgusting.  Pick a synonym.  Any synonym.  As the culmination of a wretched week of coughing, aching, stuff-head, fever, etc. this pie did nothing to lift my mood.  I was far behind the usual pie baking schedule, and for the first time since I started several months ago was just looking to "go through the motions" this week.  Unfortunately, that combination led to me selecting a mediocre (or worse) recipe and then proceeding to execute it poorly.  

I'll share some pictures and commentary below, but believe me, I don't want to.

I picked this recipe from a random blog because it looked reasonably straightforward and it called for canned mango pulp.  In general, I have been trying very hard to use fresh ingredients when available, but as I mentioned earlier, there was a strong emphasis this week on just completing the pie.  I thought that using the canned pulp would help.  It did, and I seriously doubt that using fresh would have made any difference at all.  I'm convinced that this is just not a good recipe for mango pie.  Here is the pulp that I used (thanks, U & P. B.).  I have no real idea if it is a good or bad choice, but I am certain that it was the least of my problems.

This pie used a graham cracker crust.  I thought that it was strange that the recipe did not call for blind baking.  I was at least a little bit concerned that this would result in a soggy, textureless crust.  Apparently I am getting a better feel for this, because that is exactly what the end result was.  A slimy, tasteless grotesque excuse for a pie crust.  If you look closely at the picture on the blog where I got the recipe you can even see that it looks like it has sopped up half of the filling and is discolored.  A mess.  

The filling was as straightforward as it appeared in the recipe.  The only variation was that I had to bake it for significantly longer than suggested (10-15 minutes extra) to get it to set up.  Based on the ingredients I can not say that I am surprised, but this pie was closest in texture to the egg custard pie, which you may remember I found revolting.  Perhaps most disappointingly, while it smelled pretty good, and like mango, it didn't really taste like anything at all.  It was just a losing proposition all the way around.

I certainly cannot place all of the blame on the recipe, however.  I added to the misery by leaving some loose graham cracker crumbs in the crust before adding the filling.  Of course, when I poured in the filling, those crumbs floated to the top (duh!) and resulted in some really strange graham cracker crumb/mango pulp formations.  Not attractive!  Here is an overhead view.

And a slice.

I keep telling myself that they can't all turn out.  This week was certainly proof of that.  On to bigger and better things -- I hope.  I do not even know what a cinnamon pie might be like, but I sincerely hope that it is better than this week's disaster.