Rebecca's Gluten-Free, Vegan Pie Crust (Vegan)

Single Pie Crust (Vegan but not GF)

1 1/2 c. white, all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 c. palm oil shortening* 

1/4 c. water

Mix together flour and salt. Cut in the shortening until well blended. Add water and work the dough to a uniform consistency. Roll out with a rolling pin on wax paper or pastry cloth sprinkled with flour. Transfer to a pie plate and pinch the edges to create an attractive crust. If you are baking the crust alone, prick the crust with a fork and bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 min. If you are baking the crust with the filling in it, then follow the baking instructions for the specific pie recipe.

Gluten-Free Vegan Pie Crust

1 c. brown rice flour

1/2 c. tapioca flour

2 tsp. xanthan gum

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2 Tbs. sugar

1/2 c. palm oil shortening*

1/4 c. water

Follow mixing and baking directions above.

*Spectrum is a good brand of palm oil shortening that can be found at Kroger in the natural foods section.

Elanore's Classic Cherry Pie

This pie is absolutely delicious, and has even converted the cherry pie skeptics in my family!

I always make it using this Classic Pie Crust recipe (double-crust, of course).

Ingredients:

6 cups pitted cherries (I always use jars of pitted sour cherries in syrup, drained)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup sugar
5 Tbsp. corn starch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 Tbsp. cold butter, diced (to dot on top)
Double Pie Crust (see link above for my favorite)

Directions:

*Keep pie crust dough balls refrigerated while making filling to make rolling out easier*

1. Whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon.

2. Drain cherries and mix with the lemon juice in large bowl.

3. Sprinkle sugar/cornstarch mixture over cherries and stir until everything is juicy.

4. Roll out your bottom crust and transfer to a deep dish pie pan. Pour the juicy cherry filling mixture into the crust.

5. Dot the filling with little cubes of cold butter; don't mix them in!

6. Cut top crust however you'd like and place on top of filling. (I have done lattice and full top crust, and both worked. I like lattice best, and it's not as hard as it seems!) Seal and crimp edges.

7. Spread softened butter all over top crust, and sprinkle with a generous amount of sugar.

8. Now, while your oven preheats, put the whole, unbaked pie in the freezer for 5-7 minutes! This helps the edges not to burn in the oven.

9. Bake in the lower third of the oven at 425 degrees F for 25 minutes. Then, reduce oven temp. to 350 degrees F, and bake for an additional 30-35 mins. You're looking for a perfectly golden crust and bubbling filling.

Let cool for at least 30 minutes and serve with vanilla ice cream!!! :)

Classic Pie Crust

Here is a great crust recipe for all your favorite pies!

This recipe is for a double-crust pie; for a single-crust, use amounts in parenthesis.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour (for single-crust: 1 and 1/4 cups)
1/2 tsp. salt (for single crust: 1/4 tsp.)
2/3 cup shortening - *lard or cold butter also work great* (for single crust: 1/3 cups)
6-7 Tbsp. cold water (for single crust: 4-5 Tbsp.)

Directions:

1. Mix together flour and salt.

2. Cut in shortening until pieces are about pea-sized.

3. Sprinkle in one tablespoon of cold water at a time--mixing after each addition--until all the dough is moistened and can be formed into a ball of dough. DO NOT add more water than called for!

4. If making a double crust, split ball of dough into two.

5. Lightly flour a surface and roll out your dough. Then transfer to pie plate (both deep dish and regular work). Fill with favorite pie filling!

6. If making a double crust, roll out second ball of dough and cut into desired shapes/lattice, or place entire piece of dough over filling and cut slits to allow steam to escape. Fold bottom crust edge over the top crust and crimp edges as desired.

7. I like to spread my top crust with softened butter and sprinkle generously with sugar before baking! Follow directions on your specific pie recipe to see how to bake the pie.

Olivia's Amazing Coconut Custard Pie

This is so easy and so yummy! We made it tonight in about five minutes, and an hour and a half later we were eating delicious coconut cream pie!

Combine in blender:
4 eggs
5 T. butter
1/2 C. flour (can use gluten-free)
2 C. milk
2/3 C. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

1) Blend above ingredients until well mixed, maybe 1 minute.
2) Stir in 1 C. coconut.
3) Pour into a greased and floured 10" deep dish pie pan.
4) Let stand while oven preheats to 350 degrees.
5) Sprinkle with a little more coconut, then carefully transfer to the preheated oven.
6) Bake 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and fully set.

This pie can be served after cooling on a wire rack for about 45 minutes, and it's especially delicious cold the next morning. Better make two!

Original recipe is from Lois Zehr, published in the More With Less cookbook, copyright 1976, 39th edition from May 1991.

Buttermilk PIe

This recipe originally appeared in the William and Mary Cookbook. It indicates that an alumnus in Iowa created it because she was longing for the Lemon Buttermilk Pie from the Old Chickahominy House in Williamsburg. It's really delicious. Though  my mother likes it warm, the rest of us prefer it chilled, as its delicate sweetness is enhanced that way, and something neat happens to the texture of the top when it crystallizes in the cold. It rarely makes it long enough to get to the fridge, though. As the recipe tagline in the cookbook says, "Better make two!"

1/2 C. butter, softened
1 1/3 C sugar (original calls for 1 1/2 C.)
3 Tbsp. flour
3 eggs, well-beaten
1 C. buttermilk
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice (original calls for 1 tsp.)
1/2-1 tsp. freshly grated lemon rind, optional (good both ways)
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt
freshly grated nutmeg, for topping (I usually omit this because I usually don't have it.)
1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust

NOTE: This recipe makes a regular-size pie. If you want to make a deep-dish pie, you need to make half again as much filling. It sets up fine even with 1 1/2 times the filling called for above.

1, Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add remaining ingredients except nutmeg.

3. Mix well and pour into pie crust.

4. Sprinkle with nutmeg and bake at 375 degrees until pie is set and top is golden brown, usually 45-50 minutes. It can handle cooking longer at 350, and I've even cooked the deep-dish version for an hour at 375. It's pretty forgiving.

Blueberry Pie

Philip's request for one of the Easter desserts this year...

"I didn't know you liked blueberry pie," I said.

"I've never had it," he said, "and I figured it was high time."

I couldn't find my good recipe from years back—it was from the mother of a friend from junior high, Diane Whitehurst, whom I haven't kept up with. My kids suggested I call her and ask her for her mom's blueberry pie recipe, but I do not have contact information for her, and even if I did, I figured Easter morning wasn't the time for a conversation along the lines of, "Hi. We haven't talked for 35 years or so. May I have your mom's blueberry pie recipe?"

So, I did what everyone does in the absence of a good, tried-and-true recipe... I looked it up online and chose one that looked good. It set up nicely and filled a deep dish pie pan, my two criteria for this go round. It was also delicious, so it's a keeper until Diane Whitehurst's mom's recipe comes back around sometime. I modified the original a bit, and the new version appears below.

2/3 C. white sugar
4 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 C. fresh blueberries
1 pastry recipe for a double-crust pie
1 Tbsp. butter

1. Combine first four dry ingredients and sprinkle over blueberries in a bowl.

2. Line deep dish pie crust with one pastry crust. Pour berry mixture into crust and dot with butter.

3. Cut remaining crust into 1/2-inch strips and form a lattice top to the pie. Crimp and flute edges.

4. Bake pie at 375 degrees until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly, usually between 50 minutes and one hour.

Evie's Pecan Pie (without corn syrup!)

This version of the traditional Christmas pecan pie is so much better than the sicky-sweet, artificial taste imparted by the ones made with corn syrup. Yum!

Ingredients:
unbaked 9-in (NOT deep dish) pie shell from your favorite recipe

1 C dark brown sugar
1/4 C white sugar
1/2 C butter, melted
2 eggs
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla
1 C+ hand-broken pecan pieces

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy, then stir in melted butter.

Stir in sugars and flour; mix well.

Add the milk, vanilla, and nuts.

Pour into the unbaked 9-in (NOT deep-dish) pie shell.  (You can double the filling and make this is a deep-dish pie plate if you like.)

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 30-40 minutes or until done.  Partway through, you will need to cover the crust--and maybe the whole pie--with aluminum foil or an aluminum pie crust cover, to prevent over-browning. 

NOTE: This year for Easter (2015) Evie used this same recipe to make a peanut pie. It's delicioys that way, too. Just be sure to chop the peanuts, or it's a little too big-chunk nutty!

And don't forget it's NOT a deep-dish recipe. Double the filling if you want to maje a deep-dish pie. 

Cheri's Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

From a letter from my friend Cheri, whose pie recipe my mother-in-law was looking to make while they were away in VT.  It isn't very clear, and I may try to clarify the recipe once I've made it, but for now, I want to save the recipe and delete the email.  So, here's what I know, quoted from her letter:

The recipe below looks great and saves time in relay.  I am not particular about the recipe.  I am particular about a few things.  I like it to have tapioca vs. all flour or cornstarch for thickening.  I did not pay any attention to the crust part of this recipe.  I would never make a rhubarb only pie...it's always strawberry rhubarb for us.  I don't think it would be bad to eat just rhubarb, but I'm not sure it's very common.  So, it's not that I'm opposed, it just never happens.  This recipe adds vanilla which I can't recall doing and an egg wash that isn't necessary.

Yesterday we had strawberry rhubarb shorcake...  Thummmmmmm, as Evie would say, and so easy if you haven't time or desire for a pie.

Details of what I did with this recipe.  I did not use the biscuit recipe, although it looks great.  It uses more sugar, butter, and whipping cream.  I made LLL with the optional 2TB sugar.  (note: This is from the La Leche League cookbook "Whole Foods for the Whole Family," which Cheri and I use a lot.)

On the compote, I prepared the rhubarb ahead as it says, but didn't add the berries until much later, because I didn't have them.  I didn't add the allspice and I used another jam than recommended and it was fine.  I have done that for years...substitute any red/purple jam if one is called for that I don't have.  So, my recipe had raspberry jam in it.  And I like a topping of whipped cream, but Pete wouldn't consider it shortcake without ice cream!

One more note on rhubarb in case anyone is interested.  My family is always clamoring for it at Thanksgiving and it's fairly impossible to find.  I have been reading that it is so easy to just wash, cut into recipe sized pieces, and freeze.  The only way I can find at Thanksgiving, by the way, is frozen, so why not do it myself!  I thought if they had that much around them, they might like to do the same?

Anyway, here's the recipe she doctored in the ways she's noted above:

Compote

• 4 cups 3/4-inch-thick slices fresh rhubarb (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons strawberry preserves
• 1 teaspoon minced orange peel
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 1-pint basket strawberries, hulled, thickly sliced

Biscuits

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced orange peel (orange part only)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 9 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons chilled whipping cream

• 2 cups chilled whipping cream, sweetened, softly whipped
• Mint sprigs

For compote:
Combine first 5 ingredients in heavy large saucepan or Dutch oven. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer until rhubarb is tender but some pieces remain intact, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat and add allspice. Cool completely. Stir in strawberries. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight.

For biscuits:
Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 400°F. Combine first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Add butter and cut in using pastry blender or rub with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons cream and stir until dough comes together.

Turn out dough onto lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth, about 6 turns. Flatten dough to 3/4-inch-thick round. Cut out rounds using 2 3/4-inch-diameter plain or scalloped cookie cutter. Gather dough scraps and shape into 3/4-inch-thick round. Cut out additional dough rounds.

Transfer rounds to heavy large ungreased baking sheet. Bake until biscuits are puffed and golden, about 23 minutes. Transfer biscuits to rack and cool slightly. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Rewarm biscuits in 350°F. oven just until heated through, about 5 minutes.)

Cut biscuits in half. Place 1 bottom half on each plate. Spoon 1/4 cup compote over each. Top with large spoonful sweetened compote, then more whipped cream. Cover with biscuits tops. Garnish with mint sprigs and serve.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Strawberry-Rhubarb-Shortcakes-1773#ixzz0yVEjJjGe