Small but Mighty: Mini-pie | Gaz | emporiagazette.com - Emporia Gazette

arome.indah.link

How was your Thanksgiving?

I hope all of you had a meaningful holiday, a safe holiday, and used your time to call or video-call your friends and relations.

This is good practice for the remaining holidays of the year, until we can get through the worst of the pandemic and start getting effective vaccinations. The world is in it for the long haul.

Last week’s column was closer to book-length, so here is part B: downsized pie. I’ve thought about bite-sized pie ever since I met with the Nicklins from the Emporia farmers Market, and wrote about their technique.

I love pie, but I rarely make it because I tend to be the one who eats it. Andy will have three bites, exclaim how wonderful it is, and he’s done. Forever.

It’s kind of weird giving away half a pie, or slices of pie, so I tend to just tough it out and, yes, eat the whole thing before it’s all said and done.

Ergo, the mini-pie. I took my pate brisee recipe (actually, it’s Julia Child’s recipe) and Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie recipe (actually, that one came from Southern Living), whittled them down and ended up with six beautiful five-bite mini-pies.

I gave away two immediately (Thank you, Jane and Keith!), ate one, Andy ate one and those other two? I’m sure they’ll find a good home…

Spray your muffin tins and let’s get cooking!

Small Batch Pate Brisee

10 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, cold

Pinch of salt

Dribble of ice water

You can use a mini-processor to make this dough, or cut in the butter with a fork. The butter, cold as it can be, should be cut into pieces and quickly blended with the flour so it doesn’t warm up. A pinch of salt really helps the taste, and sometimes, if you want, a big pinch of sugar (pate sucre).

Slowly add dribbles of ice-cold water, blending it in just until it makes a dough. If the dough is too sticky, gently add a little more flour.

Pat the dough into a little disc, kind of like a hamburger bun, wrap in plastic and put it in the freezer for 15 minutes before you roll it out.

Spray six cups of a muffin tin with non-stick spray and set aside. Lay out whatever you use to roll dough on — I have a marble board that I also put in the freezer before doing this — any hard, clean surface will do. Keeping things cold will make the butter puff up once it gets in the heat, creating a flaky crust.

Divide the dough into six pieces and roll each into a ball. Sprinkle a little flour on the work surface, take one ball of dough and roll it out into a circle about 4 inches in diameter.

Take the circle over to the muffin tin and fit it in, making sure there aren’t any gaps around the bottom. Now, you have a choice to make. You can trim the dough right at the top of the muffin well so it looks more like a tart, or you can work the dough around the edge into a traditional pie crust shape: scallops, flutes, twists, pressed with a fork, and so forth.

I found making a decorated edge difficult since the space between the cups is rather tight. I could have alternated wells in the 12-hole muffin tin or used two 6-hole muffin tins to avoid this. But I didn’t.

Once all your crusts are in place, put that puppy back in the freezer and start making the filling.

Murphy’s Miniaturized Pecan Pie

2/3 cup pecan halves

1/3 cup mini-chocolate chips or shaved chocolate

1/4 cup corn syrup (dark or light)

2 Tablespoons white sugar

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1 Tablespoon butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 Tablespoon Bourbon

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Take the mini-chocolate chips or chocolate shavings and divide them among the pie crusts in the freezer. Andy and I really like dark chocolate, so that’s what we do. In fact, I’ll make this recipe again before the year is out and surprise him with shaved Ghirardelli super-dark chocolate infused with chile peppers. Don’t tell!

In a saucepan, combine the corn syrup and two sugars over medium heat, stirring until melted. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, vanilla extract, Bourbon, pinch of salt and the egg until thoroughly combined.

When the syrup is ready, whisk it into the egg mixture, just a little at a time, so the egg doesn’t cook (it’s called “tempering”). Retrieve the pie crusts from the freezer.

Now, you have another choice to make. Do you want to put the pecans into the sauce, coat thoroughly and divide between the muffin tins? Or do you want to put some pecans in the bottom of each muffin tin, add a little sauce, artfully arrange pecan halves on the top and finish with the sauce?

It’s up to you and how much time you have. Either way, you need sauce all the way through the muffin well to make the pie. I like leaving the pecans as whole as possible, but many enjoy them better if they are lightly chopped. Please just don’t pulverize them into a gritty mess.

Bake the mini-pies for 30 minutes at 325 degrees. Check to see how they are looking, and if the crust edges are starting to brown, gently lay some aluminum foil over the top.

The pies should be done in 45 minutes; my oven took a little longer. I was able to check the crust by popping one of the pies out of the muffin tin and looking at it — a disadvantage compared to my clear Pyrex pie plates.

You probably could line the muffin cups with a paper liner, like a cupcake, but I worried about trapping the paper in my crimped crusts. Let the pies cool about 10 minutes (that syrup is very hot!) then remove them from the tin to cool on a rack.

So rich and delicious. So much easier to resist overeating since it comes in a pre-fab serving size. So good for breakfast, too. (Don’t tell!)

The Link Lonk


December 01, 2020 at 09:00PM
https://ift.tt/2KRBthD

Small but Mighty: Mini-pie | Gaz | emporiagazette.com - Emporia Gazette

https://ift.tt/2CPpHAw
Pie