Reeses Dream Pie

HUGE fan of Hershey's Reeses Peanut Butter Cups OR Reeses Pieces! :)  My mom introduced me to this recipe less than a year ago!  OH MY!  Get ready to brew your cup of coffee to go with it! :)

2/3 c peanut butter
1 c powdered sugar
1/4 c milk
1 t vanilla
1 8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 8 oz tub cool whip
Reeses Magic Shell Ice Cream Topping
1 premade cookie crust (Oreo)

Cream cream cheese, vanilla and milk until it's not lumpy. Add the peanut butter and powdered sugar and again stir. Fold in the tub of cool whip to the cream cheese mixture. Put this into your prepared Oreo crust. Top with Magic Shell and freeze for 2 hours. Take it out about 30 minutes before serving. You can also simply refridgerate for several hours before and keep the remainder (if there is any :)) in the fridge.

Pumpkin Pie Madness

Hey everybody!  HAPPY BELATED THANKSGIVING!!!!!  Hope everyone enjoyed some time with family and friends over the holiday!  I thought I'd just share a quick post of our pumpkin pie making day! :)  I HAD SO MUCH FUN!!!!  Totally going to be doing that next year again!  So, keep that in mind! :)

Here are a few pictures of the day! :)

Aubrey doing all the filling mixin'!

Me, filling all the crusts! :)

Pies baking in the oven!!!

Hoping that everyone that ordered was happy with their pie!!!!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Cookies:
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups solid pack pumpkin puree
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 tablespoon ground cloves

Filling:
1 egg white
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup shortening

For the cookies:  Combine oil and brown sugar.  Mix in the pumpkin and the eggs, mix it well.  Add flour, salt baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and cloves.  Mix well.  On a lightly greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet, drop by heaping teaspoons or the smallest Pampered Chef cookie scoop (pictured above is the medium scoop).  Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Let cookies cool then ake sandwiches from two cookies filled with the filling!

For the Whoopie Pie Filling:  Beat egg white and mix with the milk, vanilla and 1 cup of powdered sugar.  Mix well then beat in the shortening and the remaining cup of powdered sugar.  Beat until light and fluffy.

P-U-M-K-I-N P-I-E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FOR SALE!!  $8/pie

Well, it's that GREAT time of year that I think most everyone loves!  FALL!!!  It's most definitely my favorite season ever, and with Fall come lots of fun things!  ONE being FRESH Pumpkin Pies!  There is just NOTHING like them!  Wouldn't you agree?  Who is with me!?

My sister-in-law's family, traditionally, EVERY YEAR gets together to make TONS of Pumpkin Pies.  Ummmmm.....they are AMAZING!  Since marrying into our family, Aubrey has graciously shared her secrets and we have gotten together a few times to make them and I won't EVER do it any other way. 

That said, we've decided we are going to be SELLING our fresh pumpkin pies starting RIGHT NOW until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, November 24.  These will be "made to order" so if you are interested, e-mail me at bbaltzly@gmail.com and I'll get you hooked up. 

These are great for:

• Dinner Parties
• Just for YOU.
• Work Parties/Potlucks
• Church Potlucks
• Holiday Meals
• GIFTS!!!!!
• Teacher Gifts
• Etc.

These DO freeze.  They are fully baked when you pick them up and we literally do everything from scratch all the way from the PUMPKIN to the CRUST!

We are selling them for $8/ea.  PLEASE tell your friends and family also.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Baked Pie Shell (see Pie Crust)

Lemon Custard:

1 1/2 c sugar
3 T flour
3 T corn starch
1 1/2 c water
2 T butter
1/3 c lemon juice

In a medium saucepan stir together the 1-1/2 cups sugar, the cornstarch, and flour; gradually stir in water. Bring to boiling, stirring constantly. Reduce heat; cook and stir over medium heat for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Gradually stir about 1 cup of the hot mixture into beaten egg yolks; pour yolk mixture into remaining hot mixture in saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil; cook for 2 minutes more, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in butter until melted. Slowly stir in 1/3 cup lemon juice. Keep filling warm while preparing the meringue.

Meringue:

3 egg whites
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 t cream of tartar
6 T sugar

In a large mixing bowl beat egg whites and 1 teaspoon lemon juice with an electric mixer on medium speed about 1 minute or until soft peaks form. Gradually add 6 tablespoons sugar, beating on high speed about 4 minutes or until stiff peaks form and sugar dissolves.

Pour warm filling into cooled crust. Immediately spread meringue over filling, carefully sealing to edge of crust to prevent shrinkage. Bake in a 350 degree F. oven for 15 minutes. Cool on rack for 1 hour. Chill 3 to 6 hours before serving.

Pie Crust

So, for the LONGEST time, pies were something I simply COULD NOT MAKE! The crusts are what got me every single time. I had "given up" on my efforts in fine tuning my crusts until I was at my Grandma Cowley's one weekend visiting and was going through her recipes!! I FOUND THE GOLDEN TICKET! :)

2 c flour
1 t salt
1/4 c water
2/3 c canola oil

In a larger bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Take 1/3 c of THAT mixture and put it into a separate tinier bowl. To the 1/3 c flour mixture, add 1/4 c water to make a paste. Set aside. To the larger bowl of flour and salt, add the oil until well blended. Once both are mixed well, mix paste into the oil mixture until well blended. This will make it firm up more into a crust dough. Viola! There you have it! This makes a DOUBLE crust for fruit pies, etc.

People have asked me how I make my pies look pretty! I've added pictures above to show the "step" process in which to do that. The first step is by putting the dough BETWEEN two pieces of wax paper! ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL! Roll into a circle and set the pan on top to make sure it goes out about an inch to an inch and a half to be big enough to go up the sides. Once it's rolled into a large enough circle, remove JUST THE TOP piece of wax paper. Take the corners of the bottom piece (now has crust on it) and flip it over onto your pie tin. If you're careful, you have a little flexibility with a tiny bit of movement. Once you have "in place" remove the other sheet of wax paper and the crust should fall into the pie pan. Gently lift the edges to scoot into the bottom of the pan and up the sides. Don't want a ton of excess dough around the edges. Just a little is perfect. Flip that tiny bit UNDER and form a smooth hump around the edge of the crust. With your thumb and index finger (as shown above) left hand move along the outside and the right thumb and index finger will "fit into" the other two fingers to make the edge you see pictured. That picture is deceiving, but I didn't have anyone to take my picture with both my hands in the picture. :) Sorry! For pre-baked crusts for pies like Lemon Meringue, chocolate pudding, etc, bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Fruit pies you don't "pre-bake" your crust.