Carrot Custard Pie

 

I love to bake pies. It’s my favorite dessert to serve to company. This past week I got really creative and made a pie out of carrots. It kind of tastes like pumpkin or sweet potato pie, yet a little different. My tasters love it! You might too!

 

Carrot Custard Pie

 

1 cup granulated sugar

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. ground ginger

¼ tsp. nutmeg

¼ tsp. cloves

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 lbs. raw carrots, cooked and pureed in food processor

1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature

½ cup light cream (half and half), at room temperature

1 deep dish (9-inch) pie shell, unbaked

 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Combine sugar, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon in large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the carrot puree. Stir in the heavy cream and half and half. Pour filling into the pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 45 minutes longer or until filling is set. Cool to room temperature, and then chill in the refrigerator 2-3 hours or overnight. Serve with whipped cream. Enjoy!

Mini Fruit Pies

My family’s favorite all-time dessert, hands down, is pie. Sometimes, though, “we” can’t seem to decide on what type of fruit pie “I” should make. That’s when I like to make mini fruit pies. I make them in individual 6-ounce sized Pyrex custard cups. That way you can make more than one variety. If you don’t have baking cups or ramekins, you can also use muffin tins.

I use this crust recipe:

2 1/3 cups unbleached white flour
1 tsp. salt
6 T. unsalted butter (straight out of the fridge so it's very cold)
2/3 cup vegetable shortening (frozen)
5-6 T. cold water

Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Using your fingers or a pastry blender, cut in butter and Crisco until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (If there are some pea-sized pieces of shortening or butter in the mixture, that is fine.) Sprinkle water on top of flour and salt mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time. After each sprinkling of water, gently mix in the water drops with some of the dry mixture. After 5 tablespoons of water has been sprinkled in, the mixture should hold together in a ball. If it doesn't, sprinkle one more tablespoon worth of water onto the dough. Shape dough into 16 equal-sized balls. Roll 8 of the dough balls into circles about 5 inches in diameter. Place these circles into the bottoms of 8 baking ramekins or muffin tins. The other 8 dough balls will be used to make the top crusts.

Next, make the filling. Here are the ingredients needed for the filling:

4 cups frozen blueberries, blackberries, raspberries or peaches, thawed slightly
1 cup granulated sugar (preferably ultra-fine or Baker’s Sugar)
4 T (heaping!) all-purpose flour
1 tsp. lemon juice
3 T. butter, cut into small pieces

Usually, I’ve always got a variety of frozen fruit in the freezer. The recipe I use calls for 4 cups total of frozen fruit. So I might make four different varieties of fruit tarts, using 1 cup each of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and peaches. I’ll get out four small mixing bowls, and put a different type of fruit in each. Then I’ll divide up the sugar, flour and lemon juice among the among the four bowls. Each small bowl of fruit will make 2 tarts. Put the filling in each of the bottom crusts. Then dot the butter on top of the 8 mini pies.

Next, roll out the other 8 dough balls into circles about 4 inches in diameter. Dampen the rim of the bottom crusts slightly with water to seal on the top crusts. If desired, you can make out a small cut-out in the top crust. Or, you can just cut out a slit on top to allow the steam to escape. You may also make a woven crust, or top the pie with a crumb topping (the topping I used in Friday’s strawberry rhubarb crisp works great; you’ll just need to cut down the amount of the recipe you make based on how many mini pies you are topping).

Bake the pies in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes—until crust is golden and filling is bubbly. These pies are wonderful right out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

What I really like about these pies is you can make them up ahead of time, wrap them in plastic wrap, and then freeze them for a month or two. You would just need to thaw them in the refrigerator 12 hours or so before baking.

Enjoy!
~Becky