52 weeks of baking: 48 - black bottom oatmeal pie

Well, we're back to it. The only posts I seem to have time to do lately are my weekly baking. So here's a recap of Thanksgiving and the past week. It has been BUSY. Dear lord. I always work a lot, but this month man... I can't even tell you. I am exhausted and time is flying. How has Thanksgiving even come and gone? PHEW. It was a good day though. Brendon and I ran the 5 mile Turkey Trot here in Austin and I did soooo much better than I thought I would, seeing as how I hadn't run in over a month. And holy cow, I have never run a race with so many people. Usually a mile or so into a run people kind of stagger off so you aren't running in a crowd, shoulder to shoulder, but this race was a crowd all the way through. People all around you until the very end, and there was a mad traffic jam at the finish line. Like, seriously, a standstill. There were something like 25,000 people there. Craziness! But we had a lot of fun and it was definitely one of my favorite runs so far. Very positive and the view and weather were great.

After running our butts off we headed down to New Braunfels for two back to back Thanksgivings, one with my mom and one with my dad. Lots of good food (so full, STILL) and good company, but needless to say it was not the most relaxing day. Too much running around. A very good day though.

So of course, here I am, blogging my baking at the very last minute. I actually baked two pies this week, a pumpkin pie for my crew at work (undocumented because I was in a huge rush) and this black bottom oatmeal pie for us. This pie is very interesting. I've never really had anything like it. I guess the closest thing would be a pecan pie, but it's softer. Oh and there's chocolate.

Helloooo there tiny kitchen! How I dream of one day having counter space!

Why yes, there is a layer of chocolate ganache at the bottom of this pie. Hence, black bottom! Cute and clever!

It's real good with a hearty dollop (or two) of freshly whipped cream. Excuse my terrible pie crust. My crusts never look pretty, but boy do they taste good! This pie is a little like a mapley oatmeal chocolate chip cookie... but in a pie. It's very different and very good.

Can you believe it is December? Where did November go? WHERE DID THE YEAR GO? Although I am glad that time is going by so quickly (only 18 months until Brendon graduates!), I've been feeling a little left in the dust and frazzled. I need a break, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps January will bring some calm into my life. Goodness knows I need it! Until then, bake on folks! Dessert makes everything better.

52 weeks of baking: 45 - apple slab pie

HOLY COW. This pie. It is a winner. Favorite apple pie ever. It's a Smitten Kitchen recipe, and homegirl knows her pies.

Rolling out that gigantic crust was interesting, but not impossible at all. Also, this pie is baked in a seriously shallow baking dish! It's like a cookie sheet!

A slice of heaven. Seriously. It is very very very good and I've had two pieces tonight. I love pies for their crust and this pie has an excellent crust to filling ratio. Deb's pie crust recipe is unbeatable and in NEEDS to be in your baking arsenal, stat. Also, this pie is totally sturdy enough to hold in your hand. PIE ON THE GO! Such a winner.

And because I could go on for hours about this pie, I'm just going to highly suggest that you make it as soon as possible (it would be excellent at a Thanksgiving feast) and leave you with this blurry shot of Brendon thoroughly enjoying a slice of this baked masterpiece.

52 weeks of baking: 20 - maple cream pie

Let me forward this by stating, this pie was a bit of a failure. But only a bit and mostly just cosmetically. I was in the mood for pie so I went to my go-to, Smitten Kitchen, and found this recipe for Nutmeg Maple Cream Pie. It had simple ingredients and featured the best pie crust recipe ever (seriously, get with this pie crust. It's stupid easy and stupid delish).

I had a helper this week. My handsome husband has had most of the week off so he was home to play in the kitchen. This is where we went wrong. Both of us in the kitchen is fun, it's how we usually make dinner, but fun = you don't have your baking game face on. We tend to giggle and throw spatulas at each other, not the best environment for serious cooking.

Our downfall was when we were reducing the maple syrup. Brendon was stirring it and I was grinding nutmeg and definitely not paying attention and we waited a little too long and it started caramelizing. So when I added the cold cream, BOOM, all that maple syrup just jumped up and went quickly from liquid to stringy bits to a big ball of caramelized maple syrup (thinking back now, I bet it would have been yummy) floating in half and half. Not quite the smooth mixture we were looking for. I thought it was done for, but I took our hunk of maple and melted it down into another pot while warming the cream and then mixed the two together. And it worked! A tad more toasty than it ought to have been, but it worked.

Our next mistake, well, my mistake, was forgetting that our oven apparently runs a little hot and not setting it 25 degrees lower. So we had a little burn-age on the top of our pie. The top and edges were festively blackened (the crust maaaay have been par-baked a bit too long too, oops. Also, ugliest pie crust everrrr, finishing edges is not my thing apparently). 

I got this pastry blender for my birthday! Welcome to my life pastry blender, I love you.

Par-bakin' with beans! Now thanks to this pie and Amazon, I have real ceramic pie weights!

Did you know what an actual... nut of nutmeg looks like? It's so neat! I had no idea!

Even screwing up as much as we did, this pie tastes amazing. The ugliest pie I've ever made, yes, but it is freaking delicious. I can't imagine how good it would be without the errors. And yes, it has liver spots. SO APPETIZING. On the real though, it is GOOD. We had three pieces last night.

Also, one of the many perks of having Brendon in the kitchen? Someone to help document! Too bad his pictures always come out like this:

Quality photography, y'all. And yes, that's a miller lite. BOOZIN' AND BAKIN'. JK, it was an ingredient in the dinner I was making. But I'm not saying we didn't finish it off.