For Thanksgiving my sole responsibility was bringing dessert. I brought pecan pie, apple Breton (a kind of French apple pie), and pumpkin pie.
My pecan pie recipe is from Nick Malgieri. The recipe as posted on Food Network calls for 3 ounces of butter, but I have another version of this recipe from Nick that calls for 4 ounces. I used just 2 ounces and it was fine. Also the Food Network version calls for 2 cups of pecans, but the version of this recipe that I have calls for 12 ounces. I haven’t measured, so I am not sure whether or not this is the same.
I once served this pie to a hard-to-please southerner and it got high praise, and I have been sticking to the recipe ever since. It is good with chocolate chips added in, too.
My pumpkin pie was originally Nick’s, too. I have tweaked it considerably. The original recipe was more or less the same as Nick’s sweet potato pie (notice the reference to pumpkin). I used homemade pumpkin puree this year, and it seemed a little thin, so I added in some roasted sweet potato and left out any other added liquid. I also added in some allspice.
This Year’s Pumpkin Pie
1 1/2 cups homemade roasted pumpkin puree
1/2 cup roasted sweet potato puree
3 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
Combine all and pour into a pie shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
The apple Breton is from Nick, too. I cut down the recipe so that I could make it in an 8″ round pan instead of a 10″ pan. I have made this many times. It is better with butter (of course), but the lemon rind in the dough makes it remarkably tasty with margarine. Sometimes I let the sugar caramelize before adding the apples. That adds an extra dimension of flavor, too. I used two-thirds of the ingredients, which was perfect for a 8″ pan. I wished I had made the full amount of filling instead of cutting the amount down, though.
It was so good, I made a simple apple galette on Friday. I used up the golden delicious apples I had left over from the Breton recipe and tossed in a gala apple, too. The crust was half the recipe from the Crisco container. I had some egg wash in the fridge from the Breton and used that, too.
Easy Apple Galette
3 apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1/8- 1/4 tps. cinnamon
1 tps. lemon juice
extra sugar for sprinkling on crust
egg wash for crust
Crust
3/4 cup flour
4 Tbl. Crisco
1/4 tsp. salt
2-3 Tbl. ice water
Combine the apple slices with the sugar and add a bit of cinnamon and a drop of lemon juice. Make the crust following the instructions at the Crisco site (also see video). Roll the crust out very thin on parchment paper. Mound the apples in the center of what should be a rough 10-11″ circle. Fold the edges of the dough over the apples to partially cover them. The center of the galette will remain exposed. Brush the galette with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 400 degrees (375 degrees in convection mode) until crust is golden and apples are soft, about 1 hour.