Kitchen Fails: What happened to my pies?

So I'm usually pretty good at pies. They're one of the things that my dad makes, so I've taken part in lots of pie endeavours, and I usually keep them pretty simple. I make the dough recipe that's on the Tenderflake box because it is awesome and super simple (if you're in the states and can't find any Tenderflake, then I don't know what to tell you because none of the pie crust recipes seem to work without that lovely pastry lard. Australia, your pastry lard is kept with the butter) .

Anyway, usually my pies go easy peasy awesome (we've even been recreating Australian Meat Pies here at Home Base Canada, but that's another story). But the other day I got some Saskatoon berries and some currants and decided that I would just make pies with those and that it would be fine.

Guys, it was not actually fine.

First off, I somehow screwed up the dough. This was pretty much just the situation of me making the dough too dry and then FOR SOME REASON refusing to add more water, even though I knew it was too dry. Being stubborn is usually one of my strengths, but sometimes it means I refuse to add more water to dough that I know needs it. So yes, there was that to start, which meant that the dough was already giving me a bit of a headache.

Now, I figured that currants were not going to be the same as blueberries or raspberries, which is what I usually work with. So I looked them up on the internet. I knew they weren't as sweet, so I wanted to make sure I didn't screw it up.

The internet recipe said to cover the berries with sugar before plopping them into the pastry shells, so that's what I did. Usually I just pour the sugar over the berries once I've measured them into the pastrified pie pan, but whatever. This was a new recipe and I didn't want my pies to be too tart.

Then I topped off the pies and popped them into the oven.

Then I cleaned my bowls. And realized that ALL OF MY SUGAR had stuck to the sides of my white bowl, because the berries had been freshly cleaned and all damp. Yep, all of that sugar, not in the pies.

And yes, if you were wondering, currants are WAY tarter than blueberries. All I can say is, thank god for ice cream.

Cthulhu Pie

Have you seen the picture of the Cthulhu Pie? (There's a joke in there somewhere: "Have you seen this pie?" "No, is it new?" "No, it's an Old One" hahaha.)

I saw it, and then had the strange experience, which almost never happens to me on the internet, of looking at something awesome and saying "hang on a minute, I think I can make that".

Conveniently, I was also going to Harvest Noir (a picnic flashmob where we all dress SUPER FANCY and ALL IN BLACK and eat local food in neato Ottawa locations) with the Ottawa Steampunk society and if that isn't a perfect situation to make and consume Cthulhu pie well I don't know what is. (I mean, we play a lot of Arkham Horror, so it isn't like my life is short on opportunities to add some Lovecraftian edibles to my life, but I did need something to bring to the picnic)

Guys, if any of you make pies, this is not actually tricky AT ALL. Which I wasn't sure of when I started, so I made two pies, but waited until the first one was baked before starting the second pie JUST IN CASE. Also I made them four days in advance because I still needed to make bread for the picnic and ALSO also there was the possibility I was going to have to start all over (which is why I bought two boxes of the lard/shortening). But it all turned out really well AND they tasted good, so double win!

I made the recipe for pie crust on the Tenderflake box, because I love that recipe and it is easy and I know the pastry dough it produces is easy to work with.  This time, I was super careful about not making it too dry (unlike last time). I also decided to make blueberry pie instead of trying the cherries from the photograph because I know what I'm doing when it comes to blueberries and I wanted to use something familiar (unlike last time). I also didn't do any of the strange berry prep things that books seem to think are a good idea and just poured the corn starch and sugar right onto the berries once they were in the pie (again, unlike last time. God last time did not turn out well.) I also avoided using the frozen berries I'd bought and used the nice ones from our local market, but that was mainly because we're supposed to be using local produce and I'm not entirely sure "Canada" counts as local when the country is as huge as it is.

I tragically did not have a krinkle cut cookie cutter or pastry cutter or whatever they used to get that nice edging, and also forgot to buy one on three separate occasions. My lovely boyfriend picked me this up to use instead.

I admit that I was skeptical, but it actually turned out just fine.

So I layered the tentacles all over the pie and shaped the head with some more blueberries. The eyes turned out to be really simple to do, I just wrapped a triangular strip of dough around a berry and then threw the whole thing in the oven at the temperatures suggested by The Joy of Cooking for berry pies (450 F for ten minutes, 350 F for 35-40 minutes until Golden Brown). I even did the thing I Never Do and brushed it with milk so that it would turn out all pretty and browned.

Guys, I love how these pies turned out. Look at that Old One, just hanging out in my oven, dreaming his dreams of destruction.

I ended up with two pretty distinct Ancients, Mr. Squinty and Bright Eyes.


Then I popped them both in ziplock bags and just hoped they'd maintain their awesomeness while hanging out in my fridge. I also hoped they wouldn't destroy everything else in my fridge. And then, on Saturday, I took them out into the wild. Turns out blueberry Cthulhu pie survives in a fridge for a couple of days Just Fine. The nice part is these guys are easy enough that they may be appearing at future parties from now on. ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn (1)