Mississippi Mud Pie

Cupcakes, muffins and doughnuts are all very well, but I felt it was time to attempt something a bit trickier in order to gain favour with my housemates.  As such, I returned to my old nemesis: the Hummingbird Bakery’s Mississippi Mud Pie.

With a glaringly obvious crack down the middle, it was not the most photogenic of pies, but it stood, brave and bare without its cream topping, just a sprinkling of cocoa powder between its crisp surface and complete nakedness. 

Pastry always requires a stern word with the dough and a little prayer to the God of Pastry before it goes in the oven.  Thankfully this time it seemed to work, as it came out short and golden brownish.  The middle involved a mixture of chocolate and golden syrup so that was less of a worry, although next time a small sacrifice to the God of the Top of Pies might make it more even.  Or, failing that, something scientifically accurate.

So was it pie-fect or pie-tiful?  It was described by one housemate as sex in a cake, so this perhaps suggests it is closer to the former.  It was also responsible for a mini fight and a bit of friendly bullying, which is always the response bakers are looking for.  As such, it seems that the mighty Mississippi Mud Pie has at last been mastered.  Let’s hope that it is a permanent victory and that future attempts do not see me eating humble pie.

I Love Pecan Pie

After the Mississippi Mud Pie mayhem, I was determined not to give up on my vision of presenting a perfectly turned out, mouth-wateringly delicious, dive-right-into it pie.  With this goal in mind, I embarked on another of the Hummingbird recipes: the mighty Pecan Pie.

The course of true pie love never did run smooth, and neither would the first batch of pastry.  Once that had been thrown (with feeling) into the bin, the next batch came out fine.  The recipe tells you to use a blender to mix the pastry, but as I don’t have one, I used a combination of a handheld blender and a handheld mixer.  For the first pastry, I used my hands to mix it together, which it didn’t like; it went very crumbly and wouldn’t stay in one piece long enough to roll.  I also put it to rest in the fridge, which the recipe didn’t mention specifically.  The second batch, treated with more patience, worked a lot better, although it still refused to roll out far enough to properly cover the (now correctly sized) pie dish.  Saying that, I did have enough left to offer some decoration, as primitive as this was.  I wanted to do a Stars and Stripes design, but there wasn’t enough, so instead I thought I would go for simplicity and give it a heart.  It also reminds me of The Pie Song from the film Waitress (if you love pie, this film was made for you), which mentions ‘a pie with a heart in the middle’.

After the trauma of the pastry, the filling felt pretty easy, although I would offer this advice; do not check if recently boiled sugar and syrup is hot or warm by tasting a teaspoon of it.  It will hurt your tongue.  And you will feel very stupid.  Another problem I had with the filling was that my endlessly helpful boyfriend, Tom, and I searched high and low for corn syrup, including a Tesco so large it was frightening, and we couldn’t find any.  OK, so not high and low – we didn’t go to America – but in the end we just used golden syrup, and it worked fine.

While I was rolling the second lot of pastry, Tom, who has helped me through many dessert catastrophes, looked at it and promptly reminded me of the pie in the Lurpak advert; the man makes a really ugly but tasty-looking pie.  I was offended, initially.  I had high hopes for this pie – it would look exactly like the picture (well, except for the decorative pecan halves), it would unleash a taste of the divine, and would generally be considered to be The Father Of All Pies.  Having rolled, filled, cooked and eaten it, I have concluded that this was, perhaps, optimistic, particularly in light of the aforementioned Great Mississippi Mud Pie Mayhem.  Instead, I have decided now, that the homemade quality is its appealing feature.  It may not look piefect, but it tasted pietty good on the inside, and that is what counts.

Listen to 'Baby Don't You Cry (The Pie Song)' by Quincy Coleman and Andrew Hollander here.

Watch the Lurpak advert here.