A Honey of an Apple Pie

I only have one photo, but I've actually made three of this pie. Older son and I are doing a 90-Day Nutrition Challenge, part of which is not eating anything containing refined sugar. I replaced the sugar in this apple pie with honey, and the family actually prefers it to the same recipe made with sugar.

The filling on the pie above came out a bit watery. For the one I made today, I added a bit more flour to the filling, and it's pretty much the consistency of the pie done with sugar. I expect I may be making another one tomorrow since I don't think any of the one I made today will be around after older son has breakfast. 

Yet Another Capieke

After being asked to make a capieke for someone not in my own family, I figured I should practice a bit.

This is a blueberry pie inside a chocolate cake. I did this one differently than the others I've done. For this one, I actually baked the pie first. I then placed the pie into the sheet pan full of cake batter, covered the top with aluminum foil, and then baked the cake as directed. When the cake was done, the sides were raised about half an inch higher than the top of the pie. I carefully cut pieces of cake out of each side and evened off the top. Once it was frosted, it looked just like a chocolate sheet cake, at least until it was cut.

PiePalooza

It's not every day that I make six pies; two is more the norm. But the party following last weekend's black belt exam in Myo Sim Karate and Kendo called for potluck pies. There is also the tradition of presenting one of the master instructors with his own pumpkin pie to take home. I planned on four for the party and one for the master and ended up with those plus one for the family. I started with key lime since the crust

and the whole pie

each only bake for short periods of time. The meringue topping comes later.

After the key lime, it was on to the two pumpkin pies. Unfortunately, I got distracted and forgot to turn the oven temperature down after the first 15 minutes. This resulted in two slightly overdone pies.

Since I didn't think an overdone pie was a fitting gift for a master instructor, especially the one who was getting it, I made a third one.

Fortunately, I had made extra dough for the crust and had extra ingredients (chiefly pumpkin, condensed milk, and eggs), so whipping up one more was not at all difficult.The wife of the karate master names apple pie as her favorite, so I did that for her and the other fruit-filled pie lovers.

I actually may have over-filled this, but the more, the merrier, eh?

I did the mocha pie last because it requires no cooking at all. Unfortunately, with no into and out of the oven, I forgot to take any photos of the mocha in progress. I did get a shot of all six, though the key lime still lacked its meringue and the mocha lacked its espresso whipped cream topping.

I added those right before leaving for the party.

The pies were a huge hit at the party; the key lime was particularly praised. One person added some of the hostess' extra-jalapeno guacamole to the mocha pie and suggested we combine the two and go into business. Another person added the guacamole to the dregs left in the pie plate and agreed that the two went quite well together. We brought home empty pie plates and just a small portion of pumpkin. The husband has been doing his best to get rid of that and the slightly overdone pumpkin pie I kept for the family. Older son and I are doing a 90-day nutrition challenge, under which we stopped eating processed sugar the day after the exam and party. Yeah, somewhat sucks to be us right now on National Donut Day, but there are some benefits. Perhaps I'll blog about those elsewhere.