Special thanks to Effie Sahihi
of CBS's The American Baking Competition for sharing her "Sweetie Pies
in a Jar" - this month's featured recipe! Effie shares in our passion
for Mason jars - possibilities are endless! You can keep up with all of Effie's sensational creations at lawsofbaking.com.
From http://lawsofbaking.com/sweetiepies/:
Okay,
remember that one time at 1 am when you were scouring Pinterest to find
the perfect Valentine treat for your sweet and thought to yourself,
that would be adorable! Well, not so adorable in the light of day after
wasting a perfectly good pie crust and praying to the kitchen Gods that
mason jars are indeed oven safe despite of any actual written
confirmation of that on the packaging. While thankfully the jars didn’t
explode into a million shards of glass under the scrutiny of a 400
degree oven, the cute pie in a mason jar idea did not fair so well in
the taste and execution department. Adorable? Yes. Tasty? Not so much.
I
have been baking all of my life and rarely find myself in the midst of
epic failures and this was certainly one of them, and I am so grateful
for it. Quite often our inspirations germinate from mishaps. They are
opportunities to learn and recreate. This Pinterest fail, along with a
mild obsession of all things mason jars, bring us here today, to these
adorable Sweetie Pies and Cookie Pie Cuties made a perfectly balance
sweet-tart berry filling! I made them for all of my loves at home and I
hope you will make them for yours.
This recipe will yield 4-8 mason jars pies depending on the size of jar you use.
Ingredients:
1 Perfect Pie Crust
1 16 ounce (454 grams) bag frozen mixed berries, preferably organic
2/3 cup (134 grams) sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon lemon juice, preferably organic
Zest of 1 lemon, preferably organic
1/2 cup (100 grams) sanding or raw sugar
How to use them:
Prepare a baking sheet with a silicon baking mat or parchment paper. Place the frozen berries in a medium size pot
Stir
in the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and lemon zest. Heat on medium
heat until the mixture begins to simmer. Heat for 5 minutes until the
mixture thickens and it takes a few seconds to for the mixture to come
back together when you run a spoon across the bottom of the pan.
Empty the mixture into a bowl and set aside to cool as you prepare the dough. Roll
your pie dough on a lightly floured surface, and with each roll turn
your dough a quarter turn. Repeat this after each roll and add a light
dusting of flour if the bottom or surface of the pie dough begins to
stick. Roll to about a 1/8 inch thickness. You can see the thin
gradations of the sheets of butter throughout this dough which will
result in a most impeccably flaky crust.
Using a cookie cutter, cut round shapes that are approximately the size
of the bottom and top of the mason jar that you are using.The
amount of rounds you will need depends on the height of your mason
jars. There are no set rules here. I used three pie dough cookies and
decorative hearts tops for my jars. Press your rounds gently into
sanding or raw sugar and place on the baking sheet.Bake
at 400F for 9-11 minutes until the pie crust cookies are golden brown
on the bottom. Remove them from the baking sheet and allow them to cool
on a rack.
When you are ready to
assemble your Sweetie Pie Jars, place a cookie on the bottom of each jar
and then top it with a tablespoon of filling. Repeat this process until you reach the top of the jar and then top with the various heart cut outs.Serve
immediately to all of your precious loved ones at home and don’t forget
to tell them just how much you love them, today and everyday!P.S.
Here’s a little additional treat that, in my humble opinion, was the
best suprise ever! Since I didn’t make all of the pies at once, I had
saved the leftover filing and cookies in mason jars.So the next day I decided to make cookies for my sweet little ones’ lunches.And OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! Cookie Pies were born and they are the best things ever!These
were a little taste of pie heaven in a cookie form. And the flakiness,
you ask? Well, there are no words to do that justice, we will just have
to go straight to the picture for that!Happy Valentine’s Day my friends and much love and gratitude to you all.