Magnolia Bakery's Lime Pie

My gorgeous twin nieces, Indi and Maggie were baptised recently. Don't they look gorgeous in their little outfits?! I was so happy to be asked to be Maggie's (on the right) Godmother. This is the second time I've become a godmother (the other time was my other beautiful niece Ruby) and it's always so special to be asked.
The girls were so good, they're just very relaxed, happy babies. Everything went well, especially when the priest poured the water over their heads. No crying!

We had a really nice family lunch at my sister's house afterwards and I was asked to make a Lime Pie for it. I've made this pie a few times before and it's just so easy to make and delicious. It's from one of the places I visited while in New York, Magnolia Bakery so you know it's going to be great. I love citrus desserts, and I think this one has the perfect level of lime flavour - a little tangy without being too over the top.

Recipe Source:
The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook: Old-Fashioned Recipes From New York's Sweetest Bakery

Individual Chicken, Leek & Mushroom Pies

I know! It's amazing right? I'm actually posting a recipe for something savoury. It might surprise you to find out that I actually do cook most of the evening meals for my family, it's just that most of them don't seem postable - whether it's because the photos would come out too ugly or because I just think they're too boring. Every now and then, though, I like to try a new recipe that I'm proud to share with you lovely readers. And this recipe, that I found on Jane Kennedy's app 'OMG I can eat that?', is one of those. It is a low carb version of the chicken, leek and mushroom pie, which I know is never the same as a good old fashioned pie with flaky pastry, but it still turned out to be a delicious meal.
You see, readers, I'm actually trying to 'be good' at the moment. I've put on a lot of weight over the last year and it's really time that I did something about it. Not because I want to be a stick thin model or anything, but I just feel like I have to do this for me. I will still be posting lots of sweet treats in the future (they might just be for other people - not me), but they might be mixed in with more healthy meals, like this, as well.

To make the crust:
1 small zucchini, peeled and grated
1 egg, beaten
50g light mozzarella cheese, grated
50g parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with paper. Trace circles onto the baking paper using a ramekin - trace a circle for each ramekin. In a bowl combine the zucchini, egg and mozzarella cheese. Spread this mixture onto the baking paper, using your traced circles as a guideline for the correct size and shape.

Bake the zucchini lids in your oven for about 20 minutes, or until they start to change colour. Once you remove them from the oven allow to cool on the baking tray.
Leave your oven at 180C so you can cook the pies later on.

To make the pie filling:
1tbsp olive oil
2 small skinless chicken fillets, cut into cubes
2 cloves garlic
2 leeks, finely sliced
12 mushrooms, sliced
1 sprig thyme, finely chopped
1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp greek yoghurt

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the chicken pieces for about 5-6 minutes. Once cooked, remove the chicken from the frying pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the juices in the pan, and set aside

Add the garlic and leeks to the pan, and cook for about 5 minutes. Make sure the leeks and garlic don't brown too much.

Add the mushroom slices, thyme (I only had dried thyme, not fresh, but I found this was fine to use), rosemary, sea salt and pepper and cook for another 6-8 minutes. Then stir in the yoghurt.

Divide the mixture between your ramekins - I was only serving three people so I squished my mixture in a little bit so it would fit into my three ramekins - and top each pie with a zucchini lid. Sprinkle the lid with parmesan cheese and bake for about 10-12 minutes - or until brown and bubbling (hmmm!!)

Warning - your house will be left with the most delicious smell. You'll want more pie even after you're finished - or maybe it's just because I'm greedy ;)

Recipe Source:
Jane Kennedy's app: OMG I can eat that?
recipe for Chicken, Leek and Mushroom piemakins

Individual Chicken, Leek & Mushroom Pies Zucchini crust: 1 small zucchini, peeled and grated 1 egg, beaten 50g light mozzarella cheese, grated 50g parmesan cheese, grated 1. Preheat the oven to 180C 2. Line a baking tray with baking paper 3. To make the zucchini crust, combine the zucchini, egg and mozzarella cheese in a bowl 4. Spread this mixture onto the baking paper, making circles in the shape of a pie lid - to do this I traced around my ramekins to get the correct shape and size. 5. Bake for about 20 minutes, or just until the zucchini crust starts to change colour 6. Remove from the oven and leave on the baking paper to cool. Pie Filling: 2 small skinless chicken fillets, cut into cubes 2 cloves garlic 2 leeks, finely sliced 12 mushrooms, sliced 1 sprig thyme, finely chopped 1 sprig rosemary, finely chopped sea salt and freshly ground pepper 2 tbsp greek yoghurt 1. Preheat the oven to 180C 2. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the chicken pieces for about 5-6 minutes 3. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon, leaving the juices in the pan, and set aside. 4. Add the garlic and leeks to the pan. Saute for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly and making sure leeks and garlic don't brown too much. 5. Add the mushrooms, thyme, rosemary, sea salt and pepper and cook for another 6-8 minutes. 6. Stir in the yoghurt 7. Divide the mixture between your ramekins and top each one with a zucchini lid. Sprinkle the lid with parmesan cheese and bake for about 10-12 minutes, or until brown and blubbling 8. Serve immediately.

(Key) Lime Pie

I happen to be fascinated with what I see as typically American food, and I love introducing my family to weird and wonderful desserts that they'd never contemplated eating. Red Velvet cupcakes are now a huge favourite for my family, and I've blown their minds on a couple of occassions with a great Pumpkin Pie recipe that I found. "Pumpkin in a dessert?!" they exclaimed when I served it up a couple of Christmas's ago. Key Lime Pie is another one of these desserts that I've always been interested in trying, but haven't had the chance. Until now. I had my sisters over for dinner after work one night and I decided to make this recipe from the Martha Stewart website. Unfortunately, Key Limes aren't widely available in Australia - the only place I could think of that may have the juice is USA foods, but I didn't have time to get to the store - but this time I decided to see how the pie would come out if I used normal limes in the mixture. Now, I haven't tried a true blue Key Lime Pie, but I absolutely loved how my Lime Pie turned out. It was very similar to Lemon tart or Lemon meringue pie, but I thought the cream on top added something different - and really tasty.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Chocolate Ripple Biscuits
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
5 tbsp sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tbsp grated lime zest, plus more for garnish
1 1/2 cups cream, chilled

Instructions:
1. Heat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Combine biscuit crumbs, butter and 3 tbsp sugar in a bowl; mix well. Press into a 9 inch pie plate, and bake until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack until completely cool.

2. Lower oven to 162 degrees Celsius. In a bowl, gently whisk together condensed milk, egg yolks, lime juice, and zest. Pour into the prepared, cooled crust.

3. Bake pie in oven 15-17 minutes, until the centre is set but still quivers when the pan is nudged.

4. Shortly before serving, combine cream and remaining 2 tbsp sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Whisk on medium speed until soft peaks form, 2-3 minutes. Spoon over cooled pie. Serve immediately.

Recipe Source:
Martha Stewart website
adapted from the Key Lime Pie recipe

Apple and Raspberry Pie

I have a confession to make. I don't like apples. Well, I don't like apples on their own. I love them in pies and cakes and apple flavoured things, but I don't like the feeling of biting into a whole apple. I don't know why, it's just something that's happened in the past few years. On the other hand my Dad absolutely loves apples, and in particular his favourite thing to do with them is to stew them and eat them with ice cream. The only thing is that he doesn't flavour them in any way, so he's pretty much just eating mushy apple. One of our neighbours has been feeding this habit (literally) by giving him boxes of apples from his trees, so I recently decided to surprise him with a proper apple pie. The recipe I followed for the pie was one I found through the Martha Stewart website and I found the recipe for the pastry in the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook.

Ingredients:
1 1/4kg apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices
170g fresh or partially thawed frozen raspberries
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup plain flour, plus more for work surface
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp butter, cut into pieces
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp heavy cream

For Sweet Shortcrust Pastry (Pate Brisee):
400g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into 1.5cm cubes
1 tbsp vinegar, chilled
100g caster sugar, chilled
2/3 cup water, chilled
665g plain flour, chilled
1 tsp salt
To make the pastry:
1. Remove the butter from the fridge 20mins before you start mixing - the butter should be just soft but still very cold so it doesn't melt through the pastry while mixing.
2. Put the vinegar and sugar in a bowl and add the water, stirring well. Set aside for 10 mins, then stir again to completely dissolve the sugar.

3. If you are mixing the dough by hand, mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl and toss through the butter. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour to partly combine.
4. If you're using an electric mixer, put the flour and salt in the bowl of the mixer and add the butter, pulsing in 1 second bursts about three or four times to partly combine.

5. You should now have a floury mix through which you can see squashed pieces of butter. Turn out onto a clean work surface and gather together. 

6. Sprinkle over the sugar mixture and use the palm of your hand to smear this mixture away from you across the work surface (a pastry scraper is a useful tool to use for this step). Gather together again and repeat this smearing process twice more before gathering the dough again. You may need to smear once or twice more to bring it together - you should be able to see streaks of butter marbled through the pastry; this gives a slightly flaky texture to the final product.
7. Divide the dough into two even sized portions and shape into two round, flat discs about 2cm thick. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight. 

8. Remove the pastry from the fridge 20 mins before you wish to roll it. Sprinkle a little flour on the bench and rub a little flour over a rolling pin. Working from the centre of the pastry, gently roll the dough away from you, then turn the dough about 30 degrees and roll out again. Repeat this process until you have a flat round disc, about 3mm thick. Sprinkle extra flour over the bench and rolling pin as needed, but try to use it as sparingly as possible - if too much is absorbed into the pastry it will result in a dough with poor flavour and texture. Bear in mind that you are trying to flatten the pastry into a disc, not ferociously stretch it out in all directions as this will only cause the pastry to shrink excessively when baking.

9. Transfer the pastry to a tray and place in the refrigerator, covered in plastic wrap, for at least 2 hours to allow the gluten to relax.

10. Brush a round pie tin with a little butter. Place the pastry on top of the pie tin, ensuring it is in the centre and use your fingers to gently push the pastry into the tin, moving around the rim until all of the pastry has been inserted - you should have about 1 cm of dough hanging over the sides. Use your index finger and thumb to work your way around the edge, forcing the pastry into the tin so that little or no pastry is left protruding. Set the pastry (in the tin) aside to rest for at least 20 minutes in the freezer so that the gluten relaxes and holds its shape when you line it with foil.

11. Once the tart has been lined and rested, preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line the pastry with a double layer of aluminium foil, making sure the foil is pushed well into the corners. Pour in some baking beads or uncooked rice to fill the case and bake for 20-25 minutes. This is called blind-baking ie. pre-baking the pastry before filling it to ensure the base is crisp and cooked through.  The baking time will vary considerably from oven to oven. When cooked properly, the pastry should have a golden colour all over, particularly in the centre, which tends to be the last part to colour and become crisp. The pie shell is now ready to be filled. 

To make the pie:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Stir apples, raspberries (I used frozen), sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and salt in a large bowl. Pour into your preprepared pastry shell. Dot with butter.

 2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out remaining disc of dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut into a round suitable to the size of your pie shell. Drape over filling. Trim overhang to 1 inch. Press edges to seal. Fold overhang under, and crimp as desired. Make five 3 inch slits in top crust. Refrigerate 20 minutes.

3. Whisk egg yolk and cream in a bowl; brush over top crust. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mix.

4. Bake until crust is golden and juices are bubbling, 1 hour 10 mins to 1 hour 20 mins. Place foil on rack below to catch juices. Tent pie with foil if browning too quickly. Transfer to wire rack.

Recipe Source:

Recipe for Apple Raspberry Pie from the Martha Stewart website.

Recipe for Sweet Shortcrust Pastry (Pate Brisee) from

the Bourke Street Bakery cookbook