Sweet Potato Pie with Cardamom & Saffron

I have this notorious affliction to add saffron and cardamom to most desserts because I'm obsessively in love with the flavors. 

I was tired of cinnamon and nutmeg in pies, so I Indianized this version of sweet potato pie with Indian sweet potatoes, saffron, cardamom, almonds, and pistachios. Amongst Indian and non-Indian crowds, this is always a success and disappears in no time. 

Apple Pie

I know it's been awhile since Thanksgiving 2014, but it's not too late to share a few things I baked and enjoyed with friends. 

Classic Apple Pie with homemade pie crust is hard to beat. Last Fall was a literal apple fest at our place, and it seemed fitting to have this pie. It looks messy because of my last-minute "improvisations", but it tastes pretty good.

Eggless Mint Chocolate Chip Pie

This was my Thanksgiving Pie for last year. My husband's company organizes an annual pie contest and bake sale during Thanksgiving to give the proceedings to a local charity. This was the pie that I presented at the contest/sale and surprisingly, it won second place. I'm glad some money could be raised. I also enjoyed making the pie - it was such a welcome distraction from all the work related stress. 

I didn't want to make a pie that was involved and laborious, simply because there wasn't enough time. So I found a wonderful recipe from here and I immediately loved it. I love the combination of mint and chocolate and the recipe sounded so good and yummy, I couldn't resist it. Bonus - you don't have to bake! Just prepare the crust, freeze, prepare the filling, pour into the crust and freeze some more, that's it! 

The crust is crunchylicious - it is made from crushed mint oreo cookies and melted butter that's pressed into the bottom and sides of the pie pan.

The filling is finger licking good - cream cheese, cool whip, cocoa powder, sugar, and milk are all whipped together and laced with crunchy and cool chocolate mints

To add to everything, the pie is served with a drizzle of chocolate syrup!

 

How can it not be good?! Although I never got to taste the pie, the proof is in the prize it won :). I highly recommend the recipe!

Pumpkin-Chocolate Pie

This was my Thanksgiving Pie attempt - a creamy pumpkin chocolate pie. Everything tastes better with chocolate, doesn't it? I find it true especially with this pie because I don't seem to be a fan of pumpkin. 

This was an easy to make pie that was prepared using this recipe. I substituted ginger-snaps (ginger cookies) for the traditional graham-crackers to prepare the crust. But upon experimentation, I would suggest sticking to the graham-crackers. The ginger-snaps make the crust a little hard at first and then consequently, soggy. Secondly, I didn't go choco-crazy with triple layers of chocolate. I added bittersweet chocolate to the pie batter and skipped baking the crust with chocolate and drizzling milk-chocolate on top. And I was a little heavy-handed with the spices - especially nutmeg ;). 

I recommend trying this pie. It is mildly sweet, creamy, chocolatey, and spicy with just a hint of pumpkin flavor.

Notes on pie-baking:

I learned that over-beating or over-mixing the creamy pie batter results in air bubbles that leave cracks and "holes" on top of the pie while baking. Let the beaten batter rest until the bubbles subside, and then pour into the plate and bake.

Frozen Key lime Pie

Anand's company had a charity pie-contest today. The pie slices were sold for $3 a piece, with the intention of raising money for the food bank (I think). Since Thanksgiving is around the corner, there have been initiatives within our little town to donate food or money to the food bank, so that everybody gets to have a decent Thanksgiving meal. 

On Friday, Anand nudged me to sign up for this contest. I'm glad I did, even though this is my very first pie! Having never attempted a pie before, I searched for some easy recipes that didn't require too much effort or skill in making the ever-challenging pie crust. My culinary mentor, Ina Garten, came to the rescue, as always!

Here is the recipe I followed. There is even a short video clip with this recipe. Although this is a key lime pie, it is acceptable to make this with regular limes. Key limes are difficult to find here; especially at this time.

The basic formula:

1. The crust is made from graham cracker crumbs. Mix the crumbs with some sugar and melted butter and press it on the inside and sides of the pie pan. To ensure easy serving of the pie, I buttered the sides of the pan and placed a disc of parchment paper at the bottom of the pan before preparing the crust. And, I used chocolate graham crackers instead of regular.
2. Bake the crust for 10 minutes at 350 F and allow it to cool.
3. The custard is quite simple. Beat together egg yolks, sugar, lime zest, lime juice, vanilla, and sweet condensed milk. I also added 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a couple of extra spoons of sugar, for I felt the batter was too tart. So, taste your batter and decide accordingly. It depends on how tart the limes are. Borrowing from our Indian method of making lemon juice, I knew the addition of salt would cut the tartness and bring out the flavors much better. 
4. Pour the custard into the prepared crust and freeze overnight. Serve with whipped cream!

How easy is that? The sad part is I couldn't taste the pie to judge if it was any good! And, I couldn't decorate it due to transportation challenges. So, I entrusted that precious responsibility to Anand. I handed him a can of whipped cream, some lime wedges, and detailed instructions, demonstrations, and diagrams on how to decorate before serving. He decided to innovate with the whipped cream decoration, but it still looks pretty! I'm so proud of him for mustering the patience to do this... and photographing it ;).

And, the results of the contest are in! It's incredible that this entry won the first place in the cream-pie division in the company! We are donating the $75 won from this contest to charity as well.

Thank you Ina, for your marvelous and easy to prepare recipes!