We’re wrapping up the pie crust embellishment series today with an impressive-looking (but still super easy) poinsettia. Admittedly, this is a bit of a seasonal decoration, but with a little finessing, you can change the shapes of the leaves and petals and call it a dahlia or a pile of leaves to make it more appropriate to your current season. Whatever you call it, you’re bound to get murmurs of admiration when you bust this baby out.
Today, I bring you part two in my pie crust embellishment series. This one is probably my personal favorite: roses! These look really impressive, but as was the case with leaf borders, they’re deceptively easy to make.
Goodbye fork-pricked edges, hello leaf borders! In today’s tutorial, I’m going to walk you through the super easy process of adding a leaf border to the top of your double-crust pies. You can do this on top of a solid crust or on its own (I tend to do the latter). Adding a leaf border is a great way to dress up your pie while also expending minimal effort.
It’s been awhile since I did a how-to post, so here we are. I bought some vanilla beans on an impulse in an unfamiliar grocery store while out of town (like you do) awhile ago, and then promptly crammed them into my baking supplies and left them for months because I was stumped about what to do with them. The idea to make vanilla extract came upon me as I was planning my annual apple extravaganza, and oh, what a good idea it turned out to be.
When I started planning this week’s bakeventure (check back on Friday to sate your curiosity on that matter), I was surprised to see that I hadn’t written a tutorial on graham cracker crusts yet. Today, I intend to remedy that.
It’s officially time to start carving pumpkins, and with carved pumpkins comes pumpkin seeds. You could, of course, throw these away along with the skanky pumpkin guts with nary a second thought, but why waste such a tasty, versatile snack? Roasting pumpkin seeds is is super simple, and doing it yourself allows to you use whatever seasonings you want (because let’s be honest, those salted ones you get from the grocery store can get a bit gross after about two seeds).
Sometimes you just don’t have all day to bake, but you still want to turn out awesome baked goods. As you might have guessed by now, I like to spend hours on end in the kitchen making things from scratch. That said, I also have a lazy streak. It’s not unusual for my Sunday bakeventures to start at 4:00 in the afternoon or later just because I couldn’t get myself in gear to bake before then.
Last week, Josh and I went to Boston for a conference. In anticipation of my impending separation from my beloved oven, I came up with a challenge for myself: bake brownies using only things that could be found at or around the hotel. I did buy a bag of brownie mix (after all, there’s usually a good chance that you can find a CVS, grocery store, or convenience store somewhere near your hotel), but everything else I used could feasibly be found in the hotel. The availability of some items, like the banana, will most likely be determined by whether your hotel offers free breakfast or not, but hey, I managed to make brownies from a kludge of things, so I’m going to choose to suspend some disbelief here.
Two weeks ago, I brought you savory pie crust. This week, let’s take a look at sweet pie crust. Once again, this recipe is made much easier with a food processor. I usually use this pie crust as-is without any additions to let the flavor of the filling stand out (and because it tastes sort of like a sugar cookie). In this instance, I’ve used grated lemon zest to complement an apple lemon pie I make in the summer, but you could substitute spices, other citrus zest, or anything else you like as long as it’s not too wet.
Until I got a food processor, I was staunchly of the belief that making pie crust from scratch was simply not worth the effort. Store-bought pie crust produces consistent results, and doesn’t require the nerve-wracking process of cutting frozen butter into flour by hand.
I Wanna Bake! 