Despite the heat index of 105 on Sunday, I spent the afternoon at a picnic with some of my Leadership Charlottesville friends, including NBC 29 alumni Mark O’Brien. I baked two pies to bring, although only one of them made it out of the house. I gave careful consideration to what pies would not spoil or wilt in the extreme heat and humidity. I came up with these two: Apple with Cheddar Cracker Crust and Chocolate Brownie Pecan.

For the apple pie, the cheddar cracker topping, made with white cheddar Cheez-Its, butter and sharp cheddar cheese, was a pretty mild flavor atop the Granny Smith apple pie. It held up well to the heat and got rave reviews.

The Chocolate Brownie Pecan pie never made it to the picnic because those three words, chocolate, brownie and pecan, are some of my husband’s favorites. I can’t tell you the others.

The pecan pie is one I will definitely make again. It has a great texture and flavor.

I double pie-d this time, again, baking two very different pies simultaneously, which can be tricky. There was a moment where I had to pause and think, OK, now which filling goes into the pre-baked crust and which goes into the freezer-chilled crust? I got it right, but don’t really recommend the confusion of multi-tasking while pie baking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 8:49 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.