I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and one of my favorite things about it is of course the pies. Pumpkin, apple, pecan...I love them all. This year, I decided to make 2 homemade rustic pies for my parents' feast tomorrow including a Southern Chocolate Pecan Pie and a Lemon/Thyme pie as well.
As you can see from the above shots, they're far from perfect but they're authentic and I anticipate some serious finger licking. The first one is rich and indulgent, with semi-sweet chocolate, chunky pecans, butter and evaporated milk. Since I messed up the crust, as you can see, I've added a braided border that made it look prettier, and I also plan to embellish it further tomorrow with fresh strawberries.
The lemon thyme pie was an experiment as well, as I made my own lemon custard, using milk, lots of lemon zest, fresh thyme and butter. The crust was again too thin for my liking, but let's see how the guests react tomorrow when the whole thing is done up with fresh whipped cream. Happy finger licking...and here are both recipes.
Southern Chocolate Pecan Pie courtesy of Whole Foods
Lemon Thyme Pie courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis
Patience is truly a virtue - and something I had to test this holiday with my desserts of choosing. I decided to make mini apple pie lollipops and mini salted chocolate tartlets that you see above. Both desserts were a lot of fun to make, but required patience, precision and time. For this, you need to allot ample preparation time, as this is not a project you can do in merely an hour. I'd say that I was going at these babies for almost four hours.
All in all, I'd say that the time investment was worth it, and my family was impressed with my craftsmanship. My personal criticisms about these would be to use a chunkier apple filling in the pies and a thicker chocolate ganache in the tartlets next time. And there will be a next time. Here are the recipes for you to try these miniature goodies.
Apple Pie Pops
Salted Chocolate Tartlets: (recipe c/o Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine)
Ingredients: (Makes 24)
All purpose flour, for work surface
1 recipe basic pastry dough (see above link in Apple Pie Pops)
1 cup, semisweet chocolate chips (6 oz)
Coarse salt
1 cup of heavy cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out a dough to an 1/8 inch thickness. With a 3 1/2 inch cookie cutter, cut dough into 24 rounds (reroll scraps if necessary), then press into 24 standard muffin cups (dough should come 3/4 inch up sides). *Note - I used a smaller pastry cutter and fit these into 24 mini muffin cups and used 1/2 the amount of dough.* Freeze until firm, 10 minutes (or up to 1 day).
Bake until shells are golden, 18 minutes. Let cool completely in pan.
In a medium heatproof bowl, combine chocolate and 1/2 tsp of salt. In a small saucepan, bring cream to a bare simmer over medium-high. Immediately pour over chocolate, add vanilla, and let sit 1 minute. Stir gently until mixture is completely smooth. Pour chocolate into cooled shells and refrigerate until set, 20 minutes. To serve, sprinkle with coarse salt. (Wrap cooled unsalted tartlets in plastic and keep at room temperature up to 1 day).
