So we begin. A couple of the ingredients were tricky to find. For some reason (perhaps the fact that it was right after Thanksgiving), my local grocery stores were all out of flake sea salt. And I'd never heard of vanilla paste before. If I'd thought ahead, I could have ordered some online, but this recipe was a spur of the moment kind of thing (typical), so I improvised with vanilla bean seeds and flake kosher salt.
This is what I like to call a “One Bowl” recipe – cousin to
the one-pot meals you see all the time in Real Simple, but more generous in the sugar-fat-salt department. When all the mixing was done, the batter looked pretty much like what you’d expect a raw
custard base to be: frothy and golden and very soupy. But after baking, my
recipe (reprinted below) promised I’d see my pies “puff up like marshmallows” before setting. So
at this point, my hopes are high. I pre-baked the crusts and then filled 'em up.
The recipe made enough batter for six 4 ounce pies in my mini-tart dishes and a bonus pie in the half-sized pie dish I bought at a craft show this fall (also featured in the Szarlotka post when I had extra apple pie filling that needed a home). All of these pies used a full crust recipe - top and bottom.
I stuck to the recipe and baked my 4 oz. pies for 20 minutes. This may have been a little long since they were so small, but I watched them carefully, and the centers seemed really wobbly until the very end, while the recipe said they'd be "just slightly" wobbly when they were done. The larger pie was still really wobbly after 20 minutes, so I left it in for another five. In retrospect, I may need to redefine my understanding of what 'wobbly' looks like, because these pies were definitely on the far side of done when they finally came out. In fact, the batter seems to have seeped through the holes in the crust (from piercing them with a fork while they pre-baked) and carmelized, making a sugary cement that made it extremely difficult to remove some of the little pies from their dishes. Or perhaps I was just over-eager to get to the taste-test stage of this recipe. Anyway, this happened...
In the end, I had a plate of scraps that tasted delicious but decidedly did not look like pie. Luckily, a couple of the pies held together through the removed process and ended up looking pretty handsome.
And the half-pie stayed in his dish, which definitely helped. So let's just pretend they all came out looking like this one.
This pie is extremely rich and sweet. The recipe recommends serving it with whipped cream, which I second. It would also pair nicely with a strong after-dinner coffee (or an early morning coffee if you're the type who likes to start the day with a caffeine/sugar one-two punch).
Salty Honey Pie from Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Shop
Preheat oven to 350 F
Have pre-baked one 9-inch pie shell of your choice (I recommend Emily Hilliard's Nothing in the Hosue Pie Crust. Always).
For the Pie Filling:
½ cup butter - melted
¾ cup white sugar
2 Tbsp white cornmeal
¼ tsp salt
¾ cup honey (lavender- or ginger-infused honey
would be an excellent upgrade here)
3 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla paste (or 1 tsp vanilla extract, or seeds of 1 whole vanilla bean)
1 or 2 Tbsp flake sea salt for finishing (Maldon is a good choice)
Directions
All of the mixing can be
done by hand or with an electric mixer.
Melt butter
and combine with the sugar, salt and cornmeal to make a thick
paste.
Add the honey,
vanilla and vinegar and mix together.
Fold in the eggs, add the
cream and blend.
Pour the filling into a
pre-baked pie shell and bake at 350 F for 45 to 60 minutes.
The filling will puff up
like a marshmallow and the center will be just slightly wobbly (or very wobbly. Take it out anyway).
Once cooled at least one
hour, finish with a sprinkling of flake sea salt. Slice and serve with freshly
whipped cream. (Recipes for whipped cream: from Martha or Alton)
