Pecan Pie Tarts

When it rains, I bake. I like to bake when it rains and today was a good day in the kitchen. I love to have my kitchen toasty warm and smelling like freshly baked goodies, it seems like a cozy opposite of what the wet weather outside is.

I found this recipe from All Recipes and decided to add them to my baking agenda. They are super easy and great to stick in the freezer. I cheated a little by using premade tart crusts but you could always make the tart shells too. (I really don't enjoy making tart shells!)

Banana Pie

This is my family's favourite pie, it's barely out of the oven and the kids are already asking for their first piece. Half a pie disappears before it's even completely cool, lol. As you'll notice in the picture, it's not a very thick pie. We prefer our pie this way, and we actually both grew up with our pie being this thin and baked in a large cookie sheet rather than your typical pie plates. This is basically like an apple pie, only using bananas instead.

For this recipe you could use your favorite pie crust, but I will post mine. I've heard that you get a better pie crust when you use half butter, half shortening and I've always gotten a good crust with this one.

Banana Pie Filling
7-8 extra large bananas (slice them into small chunks)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 heaping Tbsp flour
3 tsp lemon juice
Mix this together and set aside while you make the pie crust. Depending on the size of your bananas you might have to slice more, you want enough to have a nice layer in between pie crusts.

Pie Crust:
1 cup butter
1 cup shortening
5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1- 1 1/2 cups ice cold water

Mix the dry ingredients together and add the butter and shortening. Blend this together until you have what looks like pebbles. Stir in the water and mix just until the dough forms. The more you knead a pie dough, the tougher it will be. Divide dough into two pieces. Roll out one piece to fit into a large cookie sheet with sides. Spread banana pie filing into the cookie sheet. Roll the second piece to the same size and place over the first pie shell with the filling. Using a fork to pinch the sides together, and you will also want to stab the fork over the top of your crust. Bake at 375F until light golden in colour.

Enjoy!
Tina

Pie Pockets

I'm always looking for neat snack ideas for my kids so that they're not eating so much of the processed stuff and these seemed like a great idea. The plan was to freeze them for the kids to take to school, well they never made it to the freezer, lol. They were devoured, and it's funny because they're basically just mini pies but those little things are hard to leave untouched!! These would also be really cute at a shower or anyplace you want small bite size desserts.

Pie Pockets

Crust: (or you could use your own recipe)

1/2 cup margarine or butter

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups flour

1/2 - 2/3 cup cold water

Mix like you would for any pie crust. Roll thinner then would normally roll for a pie crust, the pockets have a very small amount of pie filling in them and you will find that you can easily get too much crust.

Use a cookie cutter to cut circles, drop about a tbsp of pie filling of your choice. (I used cherry) Top with another piece of dough and press seams together with your fingers. I didn't like how uneven the edges looked so once I was done pressing the seams together I used the cookie cutter again to get a nice round pocket (see pictures for a better idea). Brush with a beaten egg white, poke a small hole at the top and you're ready to bake until golden. I found that almost all of the pockets wanted to open while baking so I think next time I make them I'll punch out a slightly bigger hole (about the size of a pencil) at the top so that the steam has a better way of escaping.

Once cool drizzle with icing. You don't want your icing too thin or it will just run and look messy, I found that when I had it slightly stiffer then I thought it should be, it was perfect. A really easy way of drizzling is to simply take a small ziplock bag and cut a small corner off, fill it with the icing and it makes drizzling really easy.

Icing:

1 cup icing Sugar

1 tbsp water

Hope you enjoy!

Tina

Danish Puff

I love danish puffs! They taste so good and are really easy to make. There are a just few steps to it but once you've done it, you won't regret it. They are a great addition to that good old go-to recipe. Great to serve to guests.


Danish Puff (adapted from Betty Crocker)

Pastry
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 tablespoons water

Topping
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup water
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs


Vanilla Glaze
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 2 tablespoons warm water or milk
Chopped almonds

Heat oven to 350°F. Place 1 cup flour in medium bowl. Cut in 1/2 cup softened butter, using pastry blender (or pulling 2 table knives through ingredients in opposite directions), until particles are size of coarse crumbs. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons water over mixture; toss with fork.

Gather pastry into a ball; divide in half. Pat each half into 12x3-inch rectangle, about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

In 2-quart saucepan, heat 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup water to rolling boil; remove from heat. Quickly stir in almond extract and 1 cup flour. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball; remove from heat. Add eggs; beat until smooth. Spread half of the topping over each rectangle.

Bake about 1 hour or until topping is crisp and brown; remove from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely.

In medium bowl, mix all glaze ingredients except nuts until smooth and spreadable. Spread over top of pastry; sprinkle with nuts