fruit pies and one giant oreo

My first weekend back in the kitchen was pie-smashingly wonderful. We made several fruit pies and the crusts were divine. In my opinion, the crust is the most important (and delicious) part of the pie AND the best way to tell if you're eating a homemade dessert or not. There are many ways to make a pie crust and everyone has a reason why they use a certain fat. Butter adds flavor, shortening adds flakiness and structure, but at the end of the day a 50/50 blend of butter and shortening is the way to go for a flavorful yet flaky crust. It's the best of both worlds. Check it out.

This was our peach pie. There were a few other fruits poured into this crust first, as it took a several minutes to figure out which of the fruit pies should have "blind baked" crusts and which ones could bake straight in the raw dough. The answer: the precooked berry fillings can be poured into pre-baked crusts and the apple and peach ones should be placed into raw crusts to be baked. I made the apple filling.

We added a top crust and pinched the edges for this pie. When I say we, I mean the JR Mint group, as noted in our pie crust.

Here are two of the finished products. I ate a good amount of crust before I left the classroom, but still managed to bring a few pieces home for Greg.

Next week we're making several types of cream pies. As long as there's crust involved, I'll be one happy baker.

I also made a dessert at home last week that I'm calling the Inside Out Oreo Cake. It is a chocolate cake with a sour cream icing and it was very tasty and rather easy to make.

Dry ingredients.

Fast forward to post bake, pop these babies out of the pans and it's time for frosting.

I finally had the exact right amount of frosting for something and not a ton extra. Voila!

Slice it up, I'll take it.

Not quite getting the full Oreo effect? Dip this in a tall glass of milk.