Frozen Reese's Peanut Butter & Oreo Pie

Yeah, thats right, I put Oreos and Reese's in the same delicious frozen dessert! Annndddd it was flippin amazing! I found this recipe over at Baker's Royale, made a couple slight changes and BAM - this was the grande finale to our Super Bowl party. It was a total hit. This dessert is one of the easiest and quickest desserts you'll ever make. You can put it together in under 1/2 an hour (that includes time to bake the crust) and then all you have to do it let it set up in the freezer for a couple of hours and you're set with a wayyyyyy better than storebought dessert to serve to your hungry peeps!

 You may have noticed that my posts have been a little unhealthy this week... so, with the most ridiculous statement I've made in a while, I'll tell you, you could lighten this up by using low fat cool whip instead of the whipping cream. LOL, but chances are if you're already piling in the Oreos, peanut butter, and the Reese's PB cups, whats a few more grams of fat with the addition of whipping cream?! And it honestly tastes way better and you're not eating edible oil products! Woot!

Did you notice I tried to give my pictures a little valentines day theme with the heart shaped chocolates?! Did you also notice that the hearts don't match this pie one little bit?! Well, I tried... I am working on this food styling thing, sooooo I'm not perfect, but at least I'm putting in some effort right?!

Alright, recipe time!

Frozen Reese's Peanut Butter & Oreo Pie
Recipe adapted from Baker's Royale

Ingredients:

• 30 double stuff oreo cookies
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 2 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, chopped

Method:

1. For the crust: Place 24 of the oreos in the bowl of your food processor. Pulse until cookies are finely crumbled. Pour in the melted butter and mix until well combined. Press into 9" springform pan to form crust. Bake 350F 7-10 minutes.
2. Place peanut butter, icing sugar and heavy cream in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat until melted and smooth (stir carefully, because peanut butter will burn easily). Set mixture aside for 5-10 minutes to cool to room temperature. While mixture is cooling, whip the 2 1/2 cups of whipping cream. Then gently fold the peanut butter mixture into the whipped cream.
3. Chop up the remaining 6 oreos and toss with the chopped Reese's. Gently fold through the peanut butter, whipped cream mixture. Pour mixture into oreo crust and freeze for 3 hours. Garnish with caramel and white chocolate drizzle.

Sound good? This has got me wanting more... the last quarter of the pie is in my freezer calling out to me. Guess you know where I'm headed after I get this post up right? Better go whip up your own to indulge in! Catch ya later.

This post has been linked up with Fusion Fridays over at Jennifer Cooks! Head on over to check out Jennifer's favorite submissions from last week and to check out what new goodies fellow bloggers are deaming up this week.

This post has also been linked up with Mouth Watering Mondays over at the Sweet Spot! Head over there ASAP to check out all the delicious creations fellow bloggers have come up with this week. :)

Happy Baking my Friends!

Lime & Blackberry Italian Meringue Pie



Always Competitive - I had to put my pie beside the picture on the magazine cover just to see how it compared!



I'm so excited to share this pie with you! It tastes so amazing and just screams summer what with the beautiful fresh blackberries and the tart burst of lime that offsets the blackberries so nicely. This is like a traditional lemon meringue pie gone rogue! If you love summer desserts, you must try this one before the summer's beautiful bounty has disappeared from the market.

Blackberry compote placed in crust waiting to be covered over by creamy lime curd.

 This pie is a bit involved, but you can cut down on the effort by purchasing the pie crust if you want. I am a bit of a baking snob, so I wouldn't buy the crust, but don't worry, I won't judge if you decide to. :) There are four parts to this pie: the pastry crust, the lime curd, the blackberry compote and the italian meringue topping. In addition to being quite involved, you don't want to make this pie too long before you serve it - it is best served within three hours of making! But don't let that stop you - this pie is well worth the effort. It looks so impressive and artistic once it is put together and it tastes amazing!



The blackberry compote has been covered by delicious, creamy lime curd.



 So lets get started with the recipe. For the pastry I'm going to direct you to Anna Olson's pie crust recipe which I posted in my Cherry Pie blog post. This is my absolute favorite pie crust recipe and it is super easy to whip up in the food processor. Once you've whipped up your pastry - chill for one hour in the fridge, then roll out and fit into your pie dish and then chill for another half an hour. Next blind bake the crust. Here are the blind baking instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Prick chilled pie crust in pie dish all over with a fork. Line crust with parchment paper and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven; lift out parchment and weights. Reduce oven temperature to 350F. Return to oven and bake, using fork to prick any bubbles that have formed and pressing down on them with back of fork, until crust is light golden brown, 20-25 minutes longer. Let crust cool completely. I made mine the night before and it worked out beautifully.

Artfully swirled italian meringue prior to browning to give it some colour.

The next component to make is the lime curd. This curd is so delicious you're just going to want to eat it by itself, but do try to save some because it does go really nicely with the blackberry compote!!

Lime Curd

Recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine - August 2011 Issue

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh lime juice - juicing a bunch of limes can be a pain, but do use fresh lime juice because taste really matters here and bottled lime juice will not cut it.
• 3 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks (save the whites - you can use them for the meringue)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 tsp unflavored gelatin
• 3/4 cup chilled heavy cream

Method:

1. Set a strainer over a medium bowl and set aside. Stir the lime juice, eggs, egg yolks, and sugar together in another medium bowl. Set bowl over a large saucepan of gently simmering water (do not allow bottom of bowl to touch water). Whisk until the mixture has thickened, the whisk will leave a path when lifted from curd, and thermometer will register 175F (approximately 15 minutes).
2. Add butter to curd, one tbsp at a time, whisking to blend between additions. Strain curd into prepared bowl. Press plastic wrap directly onto surface of curd. Chill until cold, about 2 hours. This part can be done up to two days ahead. Refrigerate curd.
3. Sprinkle gelatin over 2 tbsp water in a small bowl; let stand until gelatin is soft, about 10 minutes. Using an electric mixer, beat cream until soft peaks form. Add gelatin mixture; continue beating cream until just before firm peaks form. Fold whipped cream into lime curd. Cover and chill until ready to use.



Fresh blackberries nestled around creamy, light italian merinuge.



 Next up, make the blackberry compote. When I make this recipe again, I will likely reduce the amount of liquid in the compote - I found it to be quite runny in the bottom of the pie. The other option is to reduce the compote quite a lot until very syrupy  prior to folding in the blackberries. Either way, the taste is great, it just didn't set up as nicely as I had hoped.

Blackberry Compote

Recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine - August 2011 Issue

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fruity red wine, such as Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 cups blackberries (about 1 1/2 pints)

Method:

1. Bring red wine, sugar, and 1/2 cup water to a simmer in a medium saucepan over high heat; reduce heat to medium and simmer until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 20-25 minutes (mine took considerably longer). Let cool.
2. Add three cups berries; fold gently to coat.
3. Spread compote in an even layer over baked crust. Spoon lime curd over berries, smooth top and chill for one hour.

Beautiful toastey meringue topping.

 Are you tired yet? You're in the home stretch - you just need to make the meringue and assemble the pie now. You can do it!! Its worth it. :)

Italian Meringue

Recipe from Bon Appetit Magazine, August 2011 Issue

Ingredients:

• 3 large egg whites, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp corn syrup
• 1/8 tsp kosher salt
• 1 cup blackberries (1/2 a pint)

Method:

1. If toasting the meringue in the oven, preheat the oven to 450F (I toasted mine in the oven to get a beautiful light brown colour on the meringue, then removed from the meringue and torched areas of the meringue to give it additional colour and depth to the toastiness!!).
2. Place egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat whites in mixer until soft peaks form. Set aside. Stir sugar, corn syrup and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar has dissolved. Attach a candy thermometer to side of pan. Increase heat to medium-high and boil without stirring, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush, until thermometer registers 238F, 6-8 minutes. Remove pan from heat.
3. Meanwhile, beat whites in mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in salt.
4. Slowly pour hot sugar syrup down side of bowl into whites and beat until meringue is firm and glossy. Continue beating until cool, about 4 minutes. Spoon meringue over curd, leaving a 1" plain border, and sculpt/ swirl decoratively. Tuck 1 cup berries in and around meringue.
5. Bake pie until meringue is toasted in spots, 3-5 minutes. Watch it carefully because it can burn very quickly. Chill for 30 minutes before serving.

 Whew! What a lot of work! I brought it to a summer bbq and it was very well received. I hope you enjoy it too. Do you have some exciting plans for the last weekend of summer? Hubby & I are heading kayaking tomorrow and keeping our fingers crossed for another beautiful day of sunshine.

 Happy Baking my Friends!

Cherry Pie!

Whew! What an insane week. I don't know where the time went, but it sure flew by fast. My hubby is out of town and I've been studying and working like crazy, oh and trying to fit in a few 6am spin classes to squeeze in some much needed exercise too! Any way, last weekend during some of my *ahem* spare time, I decided to use up my 10lbs of cherries I purchased in the Okanagan while we were there. So I made cherry pie! YUM!! I think this was my best cherry pie yet - this claim can be backed by various co-workers' rave reviews, including one cherry pie afficianado who claims it is the best cherry pie he has ever tasted. Hows that for an ego boost?

You're probably thinking this is a lot of work, or some outrageous recipe. Nope! Sure isn't. Its just Anna Olson's basic cherry pie recipe from her cookbook Fresh. I tweaked the recipe a little. Here is where you can find the original recipe.


Now, I made a few changes! First off - for the pastry - I used all butter (one whopping cup of buttery goodness) instead of half butter and half shortening. I think it lead to a flakier and richer tasting crust. You could definitely taste the butter. Be warned, this does make the pastry a tad more difficult to work with because it heats up and the butter melts a lot faster, so keep handling to a minimum and be sure to chill thoroughly prior to working with the pastry.

Next, I used sweet cherries because thats what was for sale in the Okanagan while I was there. To thicken the pie filling, I used a mix of half cornstarch and half flour, I also used a heaping quarter cup (total) of the cornstarch/flour mixture as I found that in the past the filling was a tad runny. This slight adjustment lead to the perfect consistency of pie filling!

An thats it! Easy, peasy!


Happy Baking my Friends! I promise to try to catch my neglected blog up to speed with some interesting posts this weekend. :)

Pumpkin Pie with Streusel Topping

Happy Halloween! Hope you are having a spooktacular night. :) Tonight is my last post about anything pumpkin for a while, so rest assured, if you're getting a little sick of the halloween and pumpkin theme, it will be over as of tomorrow!

I made this pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and it was a huge hit! The crust is made with whole wheat flour which really adds a depth of flavour and texture to the pie in a very unexpected way. The streusel topping adds a tasty crunch to the pie as well and was enjoyed by everyone - even the non-pumpkin pie eaters.

Whole Wheat Pie Crust

Recipe from Anna Olson

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup cool, unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp whisked whole egg
• 1 tbsp cold water
• 1 tsp white vinegar or lemon juice

Method:

1. In a food processor (or by hand) combine both flours, sugar and salt. Cut butter into small chunks and add to the flour, mixing until the mixture is crumbly. Whisk egg, water and vinegar together and add to the flour mixture. Mix until dough comes together. Shape dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least one hour.
2. On a lightly floured surface, knead the pie dough slightly to soften, then roll out the dough into a circle just under 1/4 inch thick. Dust a nine inch pie plate with flour and place rolled pastry in the dish. Crimp the edges to make them look pretty. Chill the pie shell while preparing the filling.

Pumpkin Pie with Streusel Topping

Recipe from The Guy Can't Cook

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cognac or bourban
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together pumpkin, eggs, first brown sugar amount, cognac, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, cream, milk and salt in a large mixing bowl. If you want a really fluffy pie, separate the eggs. Add yolks to batter, then in a separate bowl beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the pumpkin mixture.
2. In a small bowl, combine all the topping ingredients. Mix with your hands until butter is incorporated with the sugar and flour and the mixture is crumbly. Set aside.
3. Pour filling into prepared pie shell. Bake for 40 minutes, then sprinkle with topping and continue to bake 15 minutes longer, until center is set and topping is browned (this time took about 20 minutes longer for my pie, so keep an eye on your pie and make sure the center is set before you take it out of the oven). Remove from oven and cool thoroughly before slicing.
4. Serve wedges of pie with a dallop of sweetened whipped cream or a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. A few slices of candied ginger make a nifty garnish too!

Well, thats the last of the pumpkin recipes for a while. For those of you in the USA, you can try this pie recipe out for your Thanksgiving, which I believe is coming up in a couple of weeks!

Happy Baking my Friends!