Goodness! What a wild month it’s been around the Meek house. It feels good to start getting back to some normalcy…whatever that may be at this point. I’ve missed my pie posts, though! We’ve still had pie. I’ve just taken a break from photographing the process and posting it on the blog. Getting back to pie today, though. I made this Chocolate Fudge Pie with Praline Crumble during Pi/Pie Week. That feels like forever ago! But, here we are.
If you remember (and if you do, you’re doing so much better than I am! I had to go back and refresh my memory. Good thing I take notes while making the pies!), when I made my French Silk Pie I skipped a step. Well, actually, I combined two steps. Things turned out okay, but I decided to take things a little slower on this crust to make sure I was more mindful of the process. I got a little too confident the last time around.
I swear that one of these days I’ll stop sharing photos of the sifted flour. But, that day is not today. And it’s likely not going to be next week either, since I picked up an old-school crank sifter that I want to give a try. You probably have at least one more week of sifted flour photos, for comparison. It’s for science! Or something…
Okay, here we are at the step I goobered last time. I put my fat and my ice water in at the same time. It could have been disastrous, but fortunately was not. But this time I did it right. Look! I have little pea-sized globs of flour and fat. Good job, me!
Now it’s time for the ice water! Oh, this is going so much better this time. I was oh, so gentle while mixing in the ice water.
My dough balled so beautifully!
I rolled out the dough and decided I’d try Ginger’s tip that she gave me a few pies ago–to roll the sheet of dough onto the rolling pin, then unroll it over the pie plate.
I’m going to need a little more practice, I think, but it did work a little more smoothly to not fold the dough. Looks like I need to be more gentle, though. I see some finger prints!
For the most part, I covered the whole pie plate.
I had one little area that split, but I knew it would be ok once it had the filling and was baked.
I’m definitely getting better at my fluting. If I hadn’t had that split in the dough, this would have definately been my most beautiful crust to date.
Time to make the fudgey goodness filling.
This crust didn’t get pre-baked, so I poured that delicious-looking filling right into the crust and put it into my brand new oven!
Seriously, it was brand, brand new! This was the first thing I baked in the new oven. Then the next day we lost the oven for a few days because it had a gas leak. Oops. But it’s all fixed now, and I am enjoying it immensely.
It was quite challenging not to break into the pie as soon as I pulled it out of the oven. It looked and smelled like a giant brownie with crust–a warm, gooey brownie. But, I still had some prep to do before it was ready to serve. Also, my husband was still at work, and it would have been just cruel to cut into it before he got home.
Next, I needed to make the praline for the praline crumble. I haven’t made a lot of candy, but fortunately I had a candy thermometer, which I promptly broke after making the praline.
I’m fairly certain that this is not what praline should look like, but it still served our purposes just fine.
After dinner, I whipped up some fresh whipped cream, crumbled the praline, took a few photographs of the pie, and dug in.
Look at that gooey, fudgey wonderfulness!
I mean, seriously! Don’t you want to just jump through the computer screen and take a bite? I know you do… Lloyd even agreed to try it with the praline crumble, though we were both fairly certain that would push the pie right over the sweetness level for him. Wow. It was sweet. It was rich. It was divine. It was delectable. But it was a little much, even for me. I couldn’t eat my whole piece. This is definitely a pie to take in small doses. It is absolutely worth it, but maybe cut this pie into 10 or 12 slices instead of eight.
Today’s pie stats:
- Pie #4
- Crust: Family recipe
- Pie recipe: Chocolate Fudge Pie with Praline Crumble from The Southern Pie Book by Jan Moon
- Valerie’s verdict: Delectable, but very rich and sweet.
- Lloyd’s verdict: Good, but too rich and too sweet. Wouldn’t eat the praline crumble again, because it’s way too sweet.
- Goal for next pie: Try a fruit pie with double crust. Be brave!
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