Feeling emboldened by my challah success, I thought I'd try baking a pie again. My last attempt at pie ended up in a soup bowl--it was tasty, but not lovely. I still had enough pate brisee in the freezer for another attempt. It being apple season, and with the Minnesota weather suddenly turning from summer to winter, apple pie seemed like a good bet.
I googled "apple pie" and "pate brisee" and got this sour cream apple pie from epicurious.com
This is an insanely rich dessert. Not only is the pate brisee itself laden with butter, but the filling, in addition to the standard apples and sugar, has two eggs and one and one-third cups of sour cream (I bypassed the low-fat sour cream in favor of Organic Valley's deliciously voluptuous sour cream.) It's topped by a mixture of sugar, butter, cinnamon, and flour. The suggested accompaniment is ginger whipped cream, which sounded pretty good to me. The Organic Valley whipping cream is so thick and yellow that it glugs, rather than pours, out of the carton.
This dessert, along with the same soup and bread I baked on Sunday, and a salad with butter lettuce, roasted pears, and pecans with a cassis vinaigrette, comprised dinner for my wonderful women's group. Becky, Cath, Joyce, Margaret, Rosemary and I have been meeting regularly for about 35 years. We started as a "consciousness-raising group," if any of you are old enough to remember that term, and we have evolved into something less doctrinaire and more warm and familiar. We've gone through births (children and grandchildren), deaths, marriages, divorces, jobs, retirement, happiness and tragedy together. The least I could do for this wonderful group of women was to bake them what turned out to be a pretty good pie.
11 comments:
Now that is an Apple Pie!!! You don't do things by halves, do you? I can imagine the ginger cream would be the perfect accompaniment to the pie, ummm, lovely. Jeannette
I'd like a slice of that pie, too! The ginger cream sounds like a good pairing for this pie.
Your house must of smelled of heaven, with the pie and bread freshly made. Did you churn your own butter too, Laura?
Jeannette,
The ginger whipped cream was excellent. The recipe recommended adding both powdered ginger and candied ginger, but I seemed to be all out of candied ginger. I think it would have been even better with that.
Melinda,
When people walked in the house, they all said it smelled so good! I did not churn my own butter, but that would have been an excellent idea.
As the ladies have already stated, that is one serious apple pie!! Did the eggs and sour cream make a custardy filling? The ginger whipped cream might have made a good accompaniment, but I would have given my dollop to Melinda.
Your women's group sounds incredible!
ECL,
Yes, the eggs and sour cream made a custard that enrobed the apples--Granny Smith, so they were tart enough to stand up to all that sweetness and they kept their shape nicely. What?! You would have turned down the whipped cream? Is your objection to cream or to ginger?
I'll share a dessert with you any day if I get to eat all the cream.
not only is marie funny, but so are the commentors. the glug glug sour cream sounds devine as well as voluptuous! i love ginger in almost any setting and with whipped cream, well.......
see.....pies can really be fun and easy too. yum
Jini,
I don't know that I would ever use "pie" and "fun" in the same sentence. Baking pies is still a traumatic event for me, although I liked the way this turned out.
Woah, hey now, BBC, I sure do love cream (oh how I love cream!)--it's the ginger I am not fond of.
Can we share a dessert someday anyway? The only fun part about pie is the eating part.
Marie, that is some pie! I can almost taste it. How wonderful that you have had your good friends to share these special gatherings with for so many years. How lucky are they that you prepare such lovely dinners for them.
Oriana
ECL,
Now that I know that I can't eat all your whipped cream, I think we should each get our own dessert, but we can still share.
Oriana,
Yes, we are all extremely lucky to have known each other for so long (and also to have a tradition of sharing good food!). There's nothing like food to make friendship even better. That's my thought for the day.
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