January 21st- "Oreo" Cheesecake

Speaking of not always pretty, this Oreo cheesecake was kind of a mess! Zem is modeling it to make it look more delicious. Is it working?
I should have stirred the Newman O's into the filling and made the crumbs less fine. Oh well. I also wanted to put whipped cream on it, but Dan didn't want me to use all of it. It was finally in stock at Whole Foods, but it's really expensive!

January 19th- Love Pie

 

To me, love is the combination of strawberries and vegan cream cheese. (There was also vanilla, vegan sour cream, sugar, and maybe some other stuff.)

But love is not always pretty. Sometimes it is missing the sweet glaze that keeps it from looking dried up and wrinkly.

January 18th- Shoofly Pie

A Pennsylvania Dutch Classic

January 17th- Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Pie

This boozy number was made on a whim with some dumpstered bananas. We made a thick sauce of peanut butter, cocoa powder, soy milk, chocolate liquor, and maybe some other stuff. We layered bananas and the paste in a graham cracker crust. Then it was baked for some unknown amount of time. We fried bananas to put on top and added more chocolate liquor and chocolate sauce on top.

January 16th- Three Pies!

This day was a big make up day!
The first pie I made sugar free for my housemate. It's strawberries and blueberries cooked on the stovetop, placed in a crust made from the usual pie crust.
The second pie is chocolate strawberry mousse. The mousse is from this recipe, minus the cherry. The crust is the usual crust. Strawberries were food processed into the mousse.
The third pie is a political statement that Dan brougth to the coop staff retreat. It's pecan, and the filling is from this recipe. Guess what the crust is.

January 15th- Pineapple Upside-Down Pie

More concept pies! Originally, I was going to make a right-side-up pie, but I realized that upside-down could work.
Crust: Same as yesterday
Filling ingredients:
Can of pineapple rings
2T EB, melted
1/4c brown sugar
Bag of frozen cherries
1/2c sugar
1/2c flour

Instructions:
Spread Earth Balance and brown sugar on bottom of pan. Use crust to make a ring around the side (not bottom!). Put pineapple slices on bottom in upside-down cake formation. Add cherries to the pineapple middles carefully. Mix all remaining ingredients and put on top of pineapple rings. Cut up any remaining pineapple rings and place on top of cherries. Drink delicious pineapple can juice. Add top crust and put in a few slits for venting.
Bake for however long at 375F. Cool, invert. SHAZAAM! It’s upside-fucking-down!

January 14th- Bananas Foster Pie

 

I thought I was so creative when I came up with the idea for a bananas foster pie. Google disagrees. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a cream pie. I can’t seem to find vegan cool whip or vegan whipped cream anymore. I have a carton and a half of soy whip, but I don’t know what I’ll do when that’s gone! Anyway, after reading through the standard recipes, I decided to go ahead and make it the way I imagined. I couldn’t find my usual bananas foster recipe, so I based it off this site. I changed the crust from another Killer Pies recipe. I decided to try a crust with equal parts shortening and earth balance to see what the difference would be.

Crust:
2 ½ c flour
1/2c shortening (EB brand)
1/2c earth balance
1 T sugar
1T egg replacer
5/8c ice water

As I have been doing with all crusts lately, I blended it in the food processor with everything except for the water until it gets crumbly. Then I slowly pulse in the water. I pat it out to two disks and refridgerate for as long as my patience allows (an hour ideally).

Filling:
3 bananas, cut once along the full length and then into thirds.
1c walnuts, chopped (I would have used pecans, but I didn’t want to go out in the cold again)
1/4c earth balance, melted
1c brown sugar
1/4c rum
1/4c water
1/2t cinnamon

Instructions:
Lined up bananas in crust. Sprinkled walnuts on bananas. Mixed all other ingredients in the food processor and poured on top. Baked at 375F until the crust is brown. By the way, I’m just baking until the crust is brown because I’m lazy and don’t know a better way to do it.

January 13th- Pie Am a Rock

 

Quaker Dan requested a pie in the theme of a Simon and Garfunkel song. This pie, based on I Am a Rock, is a twist on a blueberry pie. The blueberries represent a body of water. There is a slice of mango to represent an island (Pie am an island?) and a half kiwi (with skin) to represent a rock. There is also a lego man covered in tin foil. If he could talk, he would surely say “I am shielded in my armor” or, if he was in a bad mood, “I have no need for friendship. Friendship causes pain.”

Crust:
2 ½c flour
1c earth balance
3/4c ice water
(I accidentally put in 1 ½t salt. You’re only supposed to add that if you’re using unsalted butter! I said the crust was salty like the sea. Luckily, it only tasted salty before it was baked.)

Filling:
Remainder of mango and kiwi cubed and sprinkled on the bottom of the crust
All else mixed together and placed in crust on top of mango/kiwi cubes:
1 ½ lb blueberries
Zest and juice of one lemon
1/2c sugar
1/2c? flour

Baked at 375F until crust was brown

January 12th- Wave of Mutilation Pie

Those are dolphins and a fish, with a wavey crust border. I got Wave of Mutilation confused with another Pixie's song.
Oh well.

As always, volumes are guestimated

Crust:
2 ½ c flour
1 c earth balance
1/2c cocoa powder
1/2t salt
1/3c sugar
3/4c cold water

Instructions: Mix everything but water in food processor until crumbly texture is achieved. Add water, pulsing slowly, with minimal processing

Filling:
1 bag of cherries
1/3c flour
3/4c chocolate chips
(um… I neglected to add sugar. We’ll see how that works out)
Instructions: put bag of cherries in unbaked crust. Sprinkle on flour followed by chocolate chips. Add top crust. Bake at 350 until crust is firm (and done, duh)

Update: no sugar was fine!

January 11th- Cherry Berry Cheesecake

As you can see, it was crazy good!

Crust- Graham cracker crust

Cheesecake layer (all measurements estimated):
16oz Tofutti cream cheese
3/4c Sour Supreme (vegan sour cream)
1/4c flour
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tsp vanilla

Baked cheesecake layer in crust for 25 minutes at 375F. Then added bag of frozen cherry/blueberry/blackberry/raspberry mix to top and baked another 25 minutes or so. Ideally this would have chilled for a long time after baking.

January 10th- Boston Cream Pie Pie

Warning: One lie exists in the following text.

Danielle with the Boston Cream Pie Pie

Slice of pie sent home to Zach, with an orange for scale

Boston Cream Pie is not actually a pie- it is a cake. I made a Boston Cream Pie for Cake-A-Day, so for Pie-A-Day, I decided to make a Boston Cream Pie Pie. It has a fairly thin layer of cake at the bottom for the crust. Then there is a thick layer of Boston cream, followed by a layer of ganache.

With the help of Dave, Dan, Dom, and Danielle (my posse of D's), we made a very large pie. I meant to go to a party tonight so I thought I needed extra pie, but with plenty of stuff to do around the house, it became late really fast. While the pie was chilling, we watched Waitress. I learned that I'm wasting valuable time not speculating about kinds of pies. And my names need more creativity!

Here's the recipe:
Cake crust: 1 cake batch from the Horizon's Cookbook strawberry shortcake recipe. You should own this cookbook, so I don't need to violate any copyright laws.
Spread the batter on a fairly large cake pan (14inch?). Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes (complete guess).

Cream: 4x batch veganized (and otherwise remade) pastry cream from Wilton Tiered Cakes
1 1/2c sugar
3/4c flour
2t salt
6c soy milk
1/2c egg replacer
4t vanilla
1/4c corn starch
1/8t turmeric (for color)

Instructions: Book on the stove top until it thickens and boils (pudding style). Place on top of slightly cooled cake

Ganache: 3x batch (should have made more) veganized from this recipe. This is my favorite ganache recipe because it used cocoa powder instead of bakers chocolate. I found it during Cake-A-Day, then lost it for a long time, then figured out the right search terms to find it again. I'm so glad! It's really kind of magical. You'll see in the instructions.
9T water
6T Earth balance
3/4c cocoa powder
3c powdered sugar
(There's supposed to be 1 1/2t vanilla at the end, but I forgot)

Instructions: Place cocoa in the food processor (or bowl with electric beater). Boil water and EB on the stove top. Pour into the food processor and mix. The cocoa will form a solidish ball. Add the sugar and it will magically become a fantastic liquid. Add the vanilla if you don't forget. Quickly spread on the top of the pie. Hopefully you were wise enough to let the filling cool before you attempt this. I would never forget and end up having to slowly spread the ganache over smooshy Boston cream. That would be foolish.

Chill the pie as long as you can go without eating it.

January 9th- Ginger Pear Pie

Confession: All of these numbers are made up. I think they’re close though

Crust: made by my housemate earlier in the week
Filling:
8 Bosc pears
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 tsp grated ginger
1c barley malt
1/4c apple cider
1/4c corn starch

Directions:
Put pie crust in tart pan. Slice pears (so they are pretty) and put them in the lemon juice so they don’t get brown while slicing. Arrange pears in a pretty way on the crust. Mix all remaining ingredients (including any lemon juice left over from the pears). Pour on top.
Bake at 350F until the crust is brown.

January 8th- Peanut Butter Pony Pie

OMG a horse.

Ingredients:
12oz soft silken tofu
1c peanut butter
1/4tsp salt
2tsp vanilla

All ingredients food processed and put in the graham cracker crust. Some filling was reserved and mixed with a little bit of chocolate. I used a cookie cutter to hold the place for the pony. I added some toasted peanuts on top.

Today is a weird day for pies.
I ate a lot of the left over filling and it was delicious, but the pie is still chilling. It's supposed to chill for two hours, but really, we never do that.

January 7th- Blueberry Pie

Alison with the pie. It says I *heart* AL

Ingredients:

Crust: I'll get back to you on that. It's from Killer Pies and it's FANTASTIC. I'm too lazy to go get the book right now.
Filling:
2lb blue berries
Zest and juice of one lemon
3/4c sugar
1/4c flour

January 6th- Chocolate/Vanilla Swirl Pudding Pie

The chocolate pudding pie from the back of a Silk carton was probably the first pie I ever made from scratch.
Adapted from Silk's website .

Ingredients:
1/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cornstarch
3 cups + 1/4c soymilk
3 Tbsp. Earth Balance
1Tbsp + 1 teaspoons vanilla

Preparation
Combine the sugar, salt and cornstarch, and mix well. Then add the 3c Silk, whipping constantly. Divide equally between two pots. Combine cocoa and 1/4c soymilk. Add to one pot. Bring these mixtures to a boil over medium heat, still whipping constantly, then lower the heat and cover. Let boil gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and whip in the margarine (divided evenly) and vanilla (Tbsp in vanilla batch, tsp in chocolate batch). Pour simultaneously into a graham cracker crust such that one side is chocolate and the other is vanilla. Swirl. Chill. Ring dinner gong for housemates (note to self: buy gong).

January 5th- Smore Pie

The worst part about being too sick to bake pies is also being too sick to eat pies! I didn't eat yesterday's pie, but today I'm going to try at least a little bit of this one! It's cooling right now. Dan and I are debating whether to eat dinner first or just eat the pie.

I can't really tell you how to make this because I didn't do a good job keeping track. The recipe was adapted from Killer Pies, but so much had to be changed! The crust is a graham cracker crust. Then there is a layer of chocolate. I made that by boiling 1 1/2c soy milk with 1/2c soy whip. I added some cocoa powder to this (1/2c?). Then, I poured the boiled mixture over 8oz chocolate. The chocolate and cream were mixed together and poured into the crust. I cooled this in the fridge while I did some crazy attempt at marshmallow making. It kind of worked. You're better off just searching for a vegan marshmallow recipe online than trying to do whatever I did (if I even knew). Once the marshmallow mix was on top, I broiled it for a few minutes until it was brown and pretty. We'll see how it tastes!

January 4th- Half-Assed Cherry Pie

Confession: There are no pies from Jan 1st to Jan 3rd. I have an excuse! I was in the hospital, and then I didn't want to infect people by baking before I was well. So I started yesterday and I'll make up the other days later on. I hate it, though, because I'm such a Fun-A-Day purist!

Half-Assed Cherry Pie

Bottom Crust- Crust Dan made and froze a while ago. I don’t remember. Whatever.

Filling- Can of cherry pie filling. For real? Yes.Added to filling just a bit of Earth Balance (2tsp?)

Top Crust- (From Killer Pies pg 8), (1/2) Pie Shell:

3/8c Earth Balance
1c flour
1/8 c sugar
1/8 t salt
1/6c cold water

Mix together everything but cold water with a pastry knife. Sprinkle on water. Mix together with pastry knife. Refrigerate 20 minutes. Baked at 375F until golden brown