Thursday night I finished baking the brownies, the lemon bars and the raspberry bars. All was well, with the exception of the raspberry bars. Turns out, you can’t simply double a recipe and slap it in a 9 x 13 pan when half should go into an 8 x 8 square. I resisted the urge to place an emergency call to my friend Brian, aka The Food Geek figuring, a) he’d laugh at my ineptitude and b) it was too late to save those bars in any case. I sallied forth with just two desserts (which turned out, was plenty as the event ended up with MORE than enough delicious food, overall.
Saturday morning I prepped my pie crusts, then went to the store for the rest of my pie ingredients and regular weekly grocery shopping needs. I was running short on time. I got the first pie, a chocolate town pie, with eggs, butter, pecans, chocolate and bourbon, into the oven. At 2pm, the girl needed a ride to a friend’s house. As soon as the first pie was out, we jumped into the car.
Somewhere in the middle of the first pie baking, I started the blackberry silk pie by washing the berries and putting them in the food processor with sugar, to create the blackberry puree. Then I realized that I do not own a mesh sieve with which to remove the blackberry seeds. So at 2pm, I had two hours to complete the pie, make a roundtrip to drop off the girl and obtain a sieve. I timed it all out with the girl on the drive. She said, “You can do it. Just pretend it’s a new reality show on the Food Network and the people at the party are the judges.”
At 2:30pm I had sieve in hand. At 2:45 I pre-baked the crust and prepped the filling with room temperature light and heavy cream and three eggs. At 3:00pm, the blackberry silk pie went into the oven for 50 minutes. I cleaned up my collossal kitchen mess and at 3:30 went to get changed for the party. At 3:50pm the pie was not quite done, so I let it, as recommended by the recipe, sit in the hot oven for another 10 minutes. I began praying our friends would be late. They called at 4pm and my prayers were answered. At 4:05 or so, I pulled the pie out of the oven and put it on a cooling rack. I made ice packs and lined a plastic box. I had wet and froze a potholder to place under the pie inside the pie box. I knew, that if we put the pie straight into the refrigerator when we got to the party, it would be fine by the time people were ready for dessert.
A word about the blackberry silk pie before we go any further. It is not a beautiful pie. It is purplish and gelatinous. It looks scary, in my opinion. I dressed it up with fresh whipped cream and additional blackberries, but really? Not a pretty color.
Somehow, it all got done. Somehow, we arrived at the party at around 4:30pm with two pies. Both of them tasted delicious, if I do say myself. It was a tad hot to serve a cream pie, such as the blackberry silk, and we ushered it back into the fridge as soon as everyone was served.
I was happy, though; lots of good reviews and I feel as if I have finally mastered a good, flaky crust. And that’s what this whole Life of Pie experience has been about, after all.
Two women told me I was very brave to bring a pie to an event that I’d never made before. It could have been a total flop, after all. i don’t know if I’m brave. Crazy, maybe. Or maybe I know I can just laugh it off, that an epic failure pie is FUNNY, after all; it makes for a good story and really, is there anyone who HASN’T had an epic failure in the kitchen? I’m not afraid to try and I definitely want to share my baking creations (if I don’t I’ll eat them all myself and be as big as a house!). I got lucky with that blackberry silk. But next time I make it (and there will be a next time) I will make it the night before and fortunately now, I own a mesh sieve.
