(no subject)

[plonq]

There's a toy that we've had our eye on for awhile, and we finally bucked up and got one on Saturday.



It doesn't have as much torque as some of the other models they sold, but it looks way cooler, and I think it's got sufficient power for anything we plan to do.  Mom owns the same brand/model (though she's only got the 3-quart bowl) and hers has been going strong for 20 years.

I put it to the test shortly after we got it home.  I thawed some of the pumpkin I roasted last year and made a couple of pies.  The last couple of times I made these I made the pie shells by hand, using a pastry cutter.

Now I know how a caveman would have felt upon discovering satellite television.  How did I ever get by without this?

I think the pies turned out well - leastwise nobody complained about them.

Comments

[dronon.livejournal.com]

Would you happen to have a good pie-crust recipe? I'm wondering if the cutting-butter-into-bits is necessary - what happens if you melt it instead?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

Ack! Don't melt the butter - that's the worst thing you can do for your crust. The butter should be as cold and firm as possible. In fact if it takes too long cutting up the butter you should refrigerate the dough again before adding the water.

I've got a pretty good recipe that I use - found it in the interweb, actually.

http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/c00119_rec01.asp

[dronon.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I'm not a great cook. :) When I tried melting the butter to use in pie crust, what ended up happening was that the crust was slightly more difficult to roll - not in the sense of being sticky, but it was more difficult to get it to thin beyond a certain point, and cracks would open up spontaneously in the middle. It was also harder to lay down in the pie pan. As it happened, however, I had made a large version of the recipe and the added thickness worked out just fine in the end. But then, I'm not too picky with my crusts, just with the fillings.