-- INDEX to 5 RECIPES --
(1) Pirate Pie with Sweet Potatoes, Molasses & Rum (2) "Better Than Sex" Texas Pie w Pudding Cream Cheese & Pecan Shortbread crust (3) Super EZ Quick Canned Cherry Pie (4) Jefferson Davis Chess Pie w Pecan Date Custard & Bourbon Whipped Cream (5) Fresh Apple Pie (6) Pie History (7) Pi Potluck Glamour Shots
PIRATE PIE with Sweet Potatoes, Molasses & Rum
2 - (9 inch) unbaked pie shells (or 24 tart shells)
6 medium sweet potatoes or yams (3 lbs. or can use one 32 oz. canned sweet potatoes well drained)
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses (or treacle)
1 tbsp. dark rum
1 tsp citrus zest finely ground or tiny grated/minced (orange or tangerine zest work best)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup evaporated milk (8 oz)
whipped cream garnish (optional)
Preheat oven to 375F degrees. In a medium saucepan, cook raw sweet potatoes or yams in enough boiling salted water to cover for 20 to 25 minutes or until tender. Drain. Cool slightly and peel. Mash cooked or simply use well drained canned sweet potatoes. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine mashed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, molasses, rum, orange zest, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.
In a separate small bowl beat eggs and milk till light; add into other ingredients & blend well with whisk or a beater till smooth. Pour sweet potato mixture into unbaked pie shells. Cover edge of pie with foil to prevent edges from burning. Bake in 375F degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove the foil. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife, inserted halfway between the center and edge, comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Cover and chill to store (is even better if left to set). Serve with a dollop of sweet whipped cream, if desired.
My recipe for Pirate Pie was modified extensively from the original, I tried to make the dish my own & tested this recipe out before posting it online. I felt Pirates need rum and the citrus will prevent scurvy, of course. Molasses is a major source of iron & was a by product of the sugarcane refining process that makes rum (originally thought of as a worthless castoff on the Caribbean plantations, molasses would have been cheap to pirates). Sweet potatoes aka yams are high in fiber & would travel well. So, I took inspirations from yam pie recipes from the caribbean that use rum (& sometimes even pineapples) & i crossed their pie ideas with a molasses heavy, cajun custard pie version from Louisiana (A state rife with pirate activity like privateer Jean Lafitte who haunted New Orleans. It was a port city established & ruled by the French for roughly 50 years, then overtaken by Spain for the next 50 -- both lending a heavily European palette & technique to Cajun/Creole locavore cuisine). The unmodified original recipe is found a >here< The Pirate Pie recipe above is smooth southern sweet potato pie that is very similar to treacle tart or shoofly pie with carmelized molasses egg custard.
BETTER than SEX - Texas Pudding Pie (with diabetic conversions at the end in italics)
1 cup flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1/2 salted butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 cup Cool Whip or whipped cream
1 cup powdered sugar
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix
1 (3 1/2 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
3-1/2 cups milk
4 cups Cool Whip or whipped cream
chocolate bar - dark or milk chocolate (optional)
extra chopped pecans (optional)
Mix together in processor the flour, chopped pecans and butter. Spread into 9x13 pan, press it down into an even & flat layer. Bake crust 15 minutes at 350º. Chill crust & let it cool COMPLETELY (sometimes we do the crust the night before, if time allows).
In medium bowl mix together cream cheese, powdered sugar and whipped cream. Mix well; spread over cool crust. Prepare Vanilla Pudding using only 1-3/4 cup milk. Spread over cream cheese layer.
Prepare Chocolate Pudding using only 1-3/4 cup milk. Spread over Vanilla Pudding layer. Top with remaining whipped cream. Grate chocolate bar over the top (or shave the chocolate into curls). Sprinkle with Chopped Pecans if desired. Cover. Chill to set (overnight is ideal), serve.
Popular, cheap & you can even make a diabetic version of "better than sex" pie (I do this for my dad using only sugar free pudding, sugar free cool whip, replace powdered sugar with splenda & leave off the chocolate topping. When served sugar-free on Thanksgiving I don't mention it to anyone but him & the non-diabetics still gobble it up lol). My mom got this recipe at a church potluck when we were kids, but I found a similar version online posted by Cindy J that had more exact measurements. There are other regional recipes floating around, but I prefer the Texas version with the pecan shortbread crust. The state tree of Texas is the Pecan and this version of the recipe is on point with what I had growing up here. This pie was not named by me, and is a regional label. It seems like this recipe was a potluck favorite right around from the time that instant pudding came out in the 30's definitely found in post-war cookbooks. The mid-century modern history of this pie & the photo I used came from deepsouthdish blog with my thanks. This layered dish would probably be called a trifle in England.
Super EZ Quick Canned Cherry Pie
1 pkg roll-out soft, refrigerated pie crust (like pillsbury found at the grocer near the biscuits & cookie-dough section).
1 can cherries in water (drained)
1 can cherry pie filling -or- use any other canned berry or pie fruit flavor.
1 tbsp lemon juice (or juice of 1/2 a squeezed lime).
1/4 c. sugar (plus a little extra for sprinkling the top crust).
Heat oven to 425°F. Mix together 1 can of cherry pie filling, 1 can of drained cherries, lemon juice and sugar. Put soft pie crust into pan a 9-inch pie pan.
Fill the crust lined pan & cover with 2nd crust dough, (or do top in criss cross, lattice-work style); pinch to seal edge and flute. Cut slits in several places on top crust. sprinkle dough generously with sugar before popping in oven.
Bake 40 minutes or until crust is golden brown. cover crust edge with strips of foil or a foil "hat" to prevent excessive browning, remove & uncover then allow to bake for another 5 to 10 minutes until until the crust is done & golden. Cool before serving.
This recipe uses two different kinds of fruit found in a can/jar because the filling version can be super syrupy and the tart cherries in water hold their shape a little better, so you get best of both worlds. do not use maraschino cherries nor candied cherries in this...ick So, the canned cherry pie recipe above is my original "filling" but I had to look up how long to cook the crust >here<
JEFFERSON DAVIS CHESS PIE
½ cup butter
2 cups light brown sugar
4 egg yolks
2 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. ground allspice
1 cup heavy cream (or buttermilk)
½ cup chopped pecans
½ cup chopped raisins
½ cup chopped dates
1 - 10” pie shell
(optional: bourbon Whipped cream topping)
Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in egg yolks. Sift flour and spices into mixture. Add cream, pecans, raisins, and dates. Brown crust in 450 degree oven for five minutes, then add filling. Cook until set at 350 degrees (around 45 minutes). Optionally, serve topped with bourbon whipped cream.
"Chess pie, which is considered a Southern dish, really originated in England but became popular in the Old South as well as New England... James Beard, says that chess pie traditionally included brown sugar ...walnuts, raisins or dates & orange juice, grape juice or sherry. He says the Jefferson Davis Pie, with evaporated milk or cream, egg, sugar, flour and salt is what became known in the South as the chess pie...a very simple custard in a pie crust." This recipe pre-dates February 1861 & ours originated from the Mississippi Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) & was found by a reporter from Alabama in the "Audubon Plantation Country Cookbook" by Anne Butler. This blogger recommend a slice of pie served with coffee splashed with bourbon, rebellious.
OPTIONAL - BOURBON WHIPPED CREAM
1 cup heavy cream
3 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp Bourbon whiskey
Whip cream and add sugar gradually until stiff peaks form. Once cream is whipped, gently fold in the bourbon. (or if you have a NO2 charger, you can put this mix in your clean charger & create stiff cream, more on that at this >link<)
FRESH APPLE PIE
1 - 9 inch pie pastry, unbaked
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups granny smith apples, peeled & cut into chunky cubes
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp softened butter
Preheat oven to 350. Line pie pan with pastry dough. In a small bowl, combine all dry ingredients and blend well. In a separate bowl mix together apples, lemon juice & butter then add dry ingredients and combine well (but don't mush up the apples, we want them to stand up to baking). Spoon the filling into pastry covered pie pan (spoon instead of pour because you may have more liquid than needed depending on the freshness of your apples. with this in mind, i put the pie pan on a cookie sheet before baking because often the brown sugar will bubble up, carmelize & sometimes escape the pie over the sides of the dish during baking. putting a cookie sheet under the pie pan will save a smokey mess in your oven.).
Cover with 2nd crust dough, (or do your top in lattice-work style); pinch to seal edge. Cut slits or triangles in several places on top crust if you use a whole pie crust. sprinkle dough generously with sugar before popping in oven.
Bake for 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Cover the edges of the pie crust with a foil "hat" that has circle cut out of the middle slightly smaller than the size of your pie (or use foils strips). This prevents the crust edges from burning. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes uncovered until crust is golden. Cool and serve.
Back in the olden daze of the last century, I used cookBOOKS instead of online recipes for inspiration (& more importantly to get the chemistry right), but still modified the heck out of what I found. This apple pie recipe is no exception & I crossed 2 different recipes, tested it out & baked this version for my daughter frequently over the last 2 decades. We sometimes had this pie for breakfast as it is not overly sweet. Inspired by a cookbook with recipes submitted by the cast & crew of the Andy Griffith Show called "Aunt Bee's Delightful Desserts - recipes from Mayberry" edited by Beck & Clark (c). Original pre-modified recipe submitted in that book by Thayer Wine from Tennessee.
The History of Pie is as old as the Theory of Pi. Making pastry dough to bake ingredients inside has been practiced by almost all cultures in some form though the ingredients and methods are different. Even the Olde English printing press recipe books said they made pies, including a hard 2" thick dough "coffin" for meat or fruit that kept the filling from burning exposed during baking, was used as serving dish & also acted as tupperware of sorts to store & preserve the meal for several days after being cooked in the days before refrigeration. If you want to see more about how to make a "coffyne" or eat like you live in 1660s England, check out the hilarious British foodie tv show "Supersizers Go" (Restoration episode) here or find the whole series on prime (skip to 11:54 for the meat pie demo).
Thanks to everyone that came to my Pi Day Pie Potluck contributed both sweet and savory pies (pizza pie, dessert pies like those above, shepherd's pie, frito pie with homemade chili, π quiche, stromboli, pies masquerading as cakes, filipino egg pie, seafood spaghetti "hair" pie (both are the photgraphed below, potluck pie glamour shots courtesy of Suzi Migdol) and all sorts of awesome, both store-bought & home-made. All the noms, indulging the rare carbs & good conversations. The final image come from one of my fav funny blogs illustrated by the talented & clever Ally who also has strong opinions about pie :)
