Pie is what's happening now

You are probably like, but why didn't you post in March? And the thing is - well. I didn't feel like it. There ya go. See, I am out of fancy excuses. (I mean, I have some saved up for emergencies, but I can't embellish everything I want to because it turns out that strains my credibility.)

So here is what up. I have been sick, but I've written enough about plagues for right now. Bored. So bored. In much more exciting news, I have a new p/t gig involving tasty drinks and delicious sweet & savory pies. I know. I know you are jealous. Probably you should come see me, and I will make you a fancy drink and hand you a piece of (chock full of love and fruit and sugar) pie, and you will probably get a little tear in your eye.

So because pie seems to be the theme of my life right now, here is a recipe for one of my favorite pies. And coincidentally, it is the easiest pie to make ever with hardly any ingredients, perfect for lazy spring afternoons.

Key Lime Pie
Filling
4 egg yolks
1 14 oz can of condensed milk
1/2 cup key lime juice (about 3-4 key limes, squeezed)

Optional Topping
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar

Crust
*1 cup gluten free graham crackers, smashed
1 tablespoons sugar
4-5 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

For the crust, mash all your ingredients together. You want the texture to be viscous and sticky so you can mash it to the pan in a crust that will hold together. (These ingredient amounts are flexible - I like a slightly less sweet crust, so you may like more sugar. Add more butter if the mixture isn't sticking together, or more graham crackers if the mixture is too runny.)
Bake crust for 10 minutes (keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn) and let the crust cool.

For the filling, mix yolks, condensed milk, and key lime juice. Whisk together (mixture will thicken a bit). Pour mixture into cooled pie crust and bake 15 minutes (the filling will set even more as it cools).

For the optional topping, use an electronic mixer to whip cream and sugar. The longer you whip the mixture, the fluffier it will get. You can layer it on the whole pie once it cools, or dollop it on individual slices.

*If you can't find gf graham crackers, this recipe is pretty good. Or if you don't want a graham cracker crust, Molli's staple gf pie crust is a winner.

When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if it's not, mmmmm, boy. - Jack Handey

Apple Empanadas

For Anyone who doesn't know, an Empanada is a glorious little pie pocket, filled with whatever you want to put in it. Yesterday, I wanted apples, because the only thing really better than apple pie is self-contained apple pie.

These are pretty quick and easy to make. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
For the dough you will need:
1 and 1/2 cups of brown rice flour
1/2 cup of tapioca flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 cup butter, cubed and chilled
1/4 cup of cream cheese cubed and chilled
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 large egg
1/4 cup water

Combine dry ingredients.
Work in butter cubes and cream cheese with a fork or pastry knife (or your hands, you know) until the texture becomes grainy and fluffy.
Beat together vinegar and egg. Add to dry ingredients and mix well.
Kneed with your hands and slowly add in water until dough forms and sticks together. work into a ball. wrap in wax paper and chill in fridge while you make your empanada filling. (or about 30 minutes).

For the filling, you will need:
3 medium apples (gala or machintosh work well) cored, peeled and chopped small (think pinky fingernail sized)
handful of raisins
4 tbsps sifted brown sugar
3 tbsps melted butter
2 tsps cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
3/4 tsp salt
pinch of all spice or clove (a little goes a long way, so don't overdo!)
2 tbsp of corn starch


Combine dry ingredients in one bowl, and apples, raisins, and melted butter in another. Make sure each is mixed well.
Then combine the dry ingredients with the apples, making sure everything is evenly coated.

Now you are ready to roll out the dough. What works best for me is to divide the dough into eight parts. Lay out some wax paper, sprinkle a bit of rice flour on the paper and around your ball of dough. Put another piece of wax paper on top, and roll out. This helps it keep together well and your rolling pin from sticking. You want to roll it fairly thin, slightly thinner than you would for a pie shell. Don't worry, unlike a lot of GF doughs, this one is highly workable and nicely elastic, so you can make it pretty thin without fear of it tearing.
Once you have the dough the right thickness, you want to cut out a circle about 4 inches in diameter. (I just use the plastic lid to our coffee canister, which is a 2 lb plastic tub o Folgers. )

Then put 3 or 4 tsp. of the filling onto one side of your cut out circle. Make sure you leave a lip of dough exposed. Now fold over the other side of the circle, then fold up the lip of dough you left on the pocket. pinch down all around to seal the empanada closed. Repeat until you run out of dough. (4 inch circles should yield about 8 empanadas.) when finished, place on a greased cookie sheet.

At this point, you can fancy them up and dust the outsides with cinnamon, sugar, cinnamonsugar, honey, egg whites or butter. I kinda like em plain, because the dough is tasty and slightly salty and makes the filling pop, but they're your pie pockets, so do what ya like.

When your baking sheet is full, pop them in the oven. You will bake them for 10 or 15 minutes, then flip them over, reduce oven temp to 350, and bake for 25-30 more minutes.

Remove from oven and try your verybest to let them cool for a few minutes before you eat them. This will be a great test of will, but completely necessary to avoid blistering tongue burns. Pour yourself some ice cold milk, or a steamy mug of Folgers Coffee, and enjoy!

Essential Pie Crust Recipe

Couldn't resist this pic. Pi Pie. Teeheehee.

Finally! I did it! Huzzah! The perfect GF pie crust! It is soooo yummy. Light and flaky, holds together beautifully, gets golden brown, completely easy to work with, and pairs perfectly with sweet or savory. I modified it from this web site's recipe for empanadas: http://daringtothrive.blogspot.com/2008/09/testing-testing-gluten-free-empanadas.html

I didn't have all their ingredients, so I played around with what I did have, and some other recipes I've tried, and after experimenting with it for a few weeks now, I've nailed it down! It does call for multiple flours, which is sort of a pain in the ass, but, the dough is so perfect it really does make it worth it.
You want it, don't you?
Ok. I will share.

1 and 1/2 cups of brown rice flour
1/2 cup of tapioca flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/4 cup butter, cubed and chilled
1/4 cup of cream cheese cubed and chilled

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 large egg

1/4 cup water

combine dry ingredients.
work in butter cubes and cream cheese with a fork or pastry knife (or your hands, you know) until the texture becomes grainy and fluffy

beat together vinegar and egg. Add to dry ingredients and mix well.

kneed with your hands and slowly add in water until dough forms and sticks together. work into a ball. wrap in wax paper and chill in fridge while you make your pie or empanada filling. (or about 30 minutes)

when you are ready, roll out the dough with a rolling pin. What works best for me is to lay out some wax paper, sprinkle a bit of rice flour on the paper and around your ball of dough. Put another piece of wax paper on top, and roll out. This helps it keep together and also makes it easy to transfer into pie pans.

fill as you wish and fold over, pinching the edges. Bake in a 375 degree oven until edges brown.

Variations:

The first time I made this, I was making sausage empanadas, and I didn't have any apple cider vinegar or cream cheese. So I omitted the vinegar, and replaced the cream cheese with 1/4 cup of original flavored humus. The texture and workability stayed about the same, and the humus added a really nice flavor to the dish, so I recommend this variation if you wanted to make Mexican-flavored dishes, or a curry pot pie or something.

Another variation, if you wanted an extra-flaky, rich pastry dough, is to use 1/2 cup of butter instead of 1/4, which just punches up the decadence a bit. But most days I am trying not to get fat, so I try to keep the butter reasonable.

(But I feel like the day for a pear and ginger pie is coming soon... and then I'm gonna butter that shit up!)

So there you have it! I'm gonna post up the empanada recipes I've made plus a few pies in a bit, I just wanted to have the crust up with its own post, since I'm be referencing back to it quite a bit.