Pie Club Week 3: Avocado

Week 3 was Avocado and Chocolate Avocado. I love avocados, so I was very interested to make pies out of them, however I also had a hard time imagining them in a sweet form. I made 3 pies so that I could get a range of flavors and become more familiar with this ingredient in a pie.  No one in the club, or my family, had heard of or eaten avocado pie. Thank goodness they were trusting because one of them turned out amazing!

Avocado is an interesting ingredient to use in desserts and pastries because of its creamy texture, silky mouth feel due to it high fat content and mild flavor which allows it to easily combine with other ingredients. Also, it does not require baking or a lot of manipulation. Avocados are basically ready to use, and all 3 varieties I produces were no bake pie.

I made two different chocolate avocado pies, and one was okay, but the other was perfection! The first one I tried had a chocolate cookie crust, creamed avocado sweetened with condensed milk and mini chocolate chips. It was pretty simple, and the color was nice. I was not fond of how the chocolate chips looked with bright green filling. It was not the most visually appealing pie.

I also did not love the flavors of this pie, or the texture. The filling was of course creamy, but since the pie is chilled, the chocolate chips were really hard and not pleasing to crunch into. I am also not a huge fan of sweetened condensed milk, so it was a little too sweet for me. There was also lemon juice in this filling, which helped to cut the sweetness a little, but this one was not our favorite.

Next, I made just an Avocado pie. This one had both lime and lemon juices and was also sweetened with sweetened condensed milk. This pie had a graham cracker crust and was also chilled. It ended up being very similar to a margarita pie. It was smooth, creamy and pleasantly citrus. I think it would be better in the summer months. This was my sister in law's favorite of the 3 avocado pies.



Finally, I made the second chocolate avocado which turned out amazing and very surprising! This pie ended up being gluten free and I didn't even plan it that way! The crust was very interesting, and I will use it again with other pies. It was a spiced crust and was made from nuts, dates, cocoa powder, cinnamon, a little honey and nutmeg. It is a very flavorful crust, but when combined with the chocolate avocado filling became more mild. I produced 6 of these pies, and only 1 person did not love the crust. When I make this in the future, I will may use smaller amounts of the spices, but overall I love it!
Now, for the filling, it was simply creamed avocado with a little lemon juice and a pinch of salt, blended with melted dark chocolate. It was so dense, and super satisfying, chocolaty delicious! If I had not told anyone, they would have never know that the filling was avocado. The fatty texture in from the avocados made the filling so rich and smooth, this pie reminds me of chocolate silk, but so much healthier! There is no flour, and the only added sugar is from 1 tablespoon of honey used in the crust. I finished this pie with little stars of freshly whipped cream, and was so pleasantly surprised with this pie!

I will defiantly produce this one over and over again! I learned so much from avocado pie week, and it was so fun and delicious!

Pie Club Week 2: Coconut Cream

Week 2 was Coconut Cream, and this week I only made one recipe version. Most people have had coconut cream pie before, so I knew what I wanted in this pie. The coconut cream I made had coconut custard on the bottom, and sweetened whipped cream on top of the custard. I made the custard with coconut milk, whole milk, sugar, egg yolks, salt and cornstarch and then folded in toasted coconut flakes. I also topped the pie with toasted coconut flakes. I used my pate brisee recipe for the crust.

Overall, the pie was very delicious and I only received very positive feed back about his pie, including "I would definatley purchase this pie in a bake shop" and "This is the best coconut cream pie I have ever had". I really enjoyed making and eating this pie! It was perfectly smooth, creamy and light. The custard had a very pleasing mouth feel, and smelled amazing! Since I toasted the coconut, it had a very nice texture and did not stick in my teeth like coconut sometimes will. It held shape perfectly and was visually appealing.

The only thing I will work on to improve upon this coconut cream is that I would like there to be more coconut flavor in the custard. I used vanilla with the coconut milk, but I think I will take that out of the recipe. Also, I would like to infuse some coconut flavor into the custard through a steeping process, or something similar, to get more true coconut flavor. I try to use extracts, especially with a flavor like coconut. I am excited to experiment!



Pie Club Week 1: Pineapple

I have decided to dedicate this blog, (which I have hardly used) to documenting the 52 different pies I am going to make in the next 52 weeks! I am making these pies to help develop my menu for a business that I will be opening, and to perfect the recipes I will use. I created a pie club, where my friends and family can becomes members and choose 1 or 1 of each pie from the 4-5 I make each month to enjoy and give me feedback on. I am super excited about this pie club!!!

Week 1: Pineapple Pie
I tried 3 different recipes for pineapple pie, and there was one clear winner. I made a lattice pie, which included canned pineapple, sugar and cornstarch.

The second pie was a double crust with fresh pineapple, eggs, sugar, flour and lemon.

And the third, was a pineapple meringue pie which included canned, crushed pineapple, sugar, eggs, cornstarch, vanilla and butter.

I was really hoping the pie that I used fresh pineapple and lemon in would be the best, but it turned out that simplicity won. The first pie, which was the most simple and had the fewest ingredients, was by far the best; and very delicious. 

The double crust pie with the fresh pineapple had a perfume aftertaste, which was not pleasant, and with flour as the only thickener it did not set up the way I wanted it to. I could have used cornstarch in the pie as well, but I wanted to experiment with other thickeners. 

The meringue was also good, but not as good as lemon meringue, so why bother? :)

Overall, I found pineapple pie to be a very delicious option. It smelled heavenly during baking and as it cooled.  Pineapple pie is beautiful when baked, and I received amazing, positive feedback about it, including "This pie is better than golfing!". The flavor was not overly sour or sweet, but a very nice in between and I love that is used simple ingredients. The density of the filling was perfect with the flakiness of the crust, and was balanced even more with some fresh whipped cream. this pie reminds me of pineapple upside down cake, but even a little  better due to the flaky crust! A wonderful, non-traditional, fruit pie that I will definitely bake again.