[Picture inadvertently deleted]
These may be my best pies ever! I decided not to use my mom's recipe, which works perfectly for her - she makes the flakiest pie crust I've ever had - but which does not work nearly as well for me. So I started completely from scratch using a different recipe, the pâte brisée (butter crust) found
here, and I rolled the crust out between two pieces of parchment paper, as suggested
here. The bottom crusts of both the apple and pumpkin pies turned out perfectly, and I was even able to get a lovely scalloped edge on the pumpkin pie (I killed it taking the foil off while the pie was baking, which is why there's no photo). The batch of crust I used for the lattice on the apple pie turned out a tad tough because of too much water, but it was still good.
Now that I'm a little more confident, I think I'll try a shortening crust next time and maybe will also try the old vodka trick. If you have any tried-and-true crust recipes you'd like to send my way, feel free to email them to me via the address on the sidebar.
Now that Thanksgiving is over, I am gleefully enjoying the Christmas season, my absolute favorite time of year. I've been humming Christmas songs since, well, last Christmas, and singing them at the top of my lungs since the first snow early this week (Geoff's loving that), and my Christmas shopping is nearly done. Now, it's time to start planning the cookies. I usually make multiple batches of many different varieties to give as presents, most of which are recipes that my mom made every year when I was a kid - it just wouldn't be Christmas without snowballs, cranberry bars, thumbprints, magic bars... Yum.
So, ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself for some more baking posts! I'm considering some sort of holiday contest or giveaway, perhaps with cookies as the prize. Is that something you'd be interested in?