Mini Pecan & Apple-Maple-Bacon Pies (Take 1)

In my desire to best pie crust, I’m putting more effort into making pies, particularly mini pies. I like the mini pies because they offer the perfect little bite of pie and, because of their shape, offer a higher crust to filling ratio than a regular pie. Mark Bittman recently made a rather divisive comment about pies, saying that the crust offers nothing more than "heft and calories." Love him though I do, I have to vehemently disagree with Mr. Bittman here. As far as I’m concerned, filling is a vehicle for pie crust and not the other way around. I eat pie for the crust. And though I've yet to master this art, I surge forth in my quest to make the perfect pie crust.

The title of this post is followed by “Take 1” because neither of these pies turned out perfectly. Therefore, I’m not going to provide the recipes to my sub-par pies, but I am recounting these trials because I believe you can learn just as much about cooking from your failures as you can from your successes. In all, they were ample starts on the road to good pie.

Maple Pecan Pies 
I’ve recently decided that I want to try to make pastries if not, in actuality, healthier, then at least less bad. I’ve read a lot about white whole wheat flour and, though I’d never used it, wanted to see how it fared in a pie crust application. I also wanted to see how pecan pie would be with maple syrup accounting for part of the sugar and a decrease in the overall amount of sugar in the filling. The recipe I used was just a slight variation on the recipe that comes on the back of the Karo corn syrup bottle: instead of the Karo I used 1 cup of maple syrup and only ½ cup of brown sugar, instead of 1 cup of each, thereby decreasing the total sugar by 25%. The filling turned okay, if a bit typical. I was surprised that I didn’t taste maple at all, just sweetness, and that with even ½ cup of sugar less, I still felt that I could have easily cut more sugar without sacrificing taste. It was good, but it wasn’t any different from pecan pie fillings I’ve made in the past.

The crust was another story entirely. The main problem with using whole wheat flour, I found, was that whole wheat flour drinks up a lot more water than white flour and in pie crust, more water equals a less tender, less flaky, less scrumptious crust. There was also a distinct wheaty flavor that was out of place in a pie crust. It wasn’t inedible – in fact, I got rave reviews of the pies at work, though I suspect that had more to do with the fact that I made them and no one’s going to tell me I made a crap pie – I wasn’t happy with it. It took me a while, but I finally realized what the crust tasted like that made it so disappointing: it tasted like frozen pie crust. For this crust aficionado, that was a no-go. I shall head back to the drawing board on the Maple Pecan Pies. 

Apple Maple Bacon Pie 

The impetus of this pie was the Sautéed Apples & Bacon recipe I picked up from JoC a few months ago. My thought was, wouldn’t apple pie be great if it were sweetened by maple syrup instead of sugar and studded with little bits of bacon? What’s not to like about that?

I decided to use two Braeburn apples and a Golden Delicious in my filling. I chose the Braeburns because they have a very hearty apple flavor (I do not like them raw…I only like Fuji apples raw because they don’t actually taste like apples, but that quality is not so great for a cooked apple) and the Golden Delicious because, well, I don’t know but it seemed like a good idea to get a Golden Delicious. Perhaps because I used them in the Sautéed Apples & Bacon I knew they stood up well to heat and wouldn’t get mealy.

I sliced up the apples thinly and cut the slices into thirds so they would fit in the muffin tins better. I cooked up and finely chopped a couple slices of bacon (I used Hormel Black Label because it has a nice, assertive smoky taste) and then sautéed the apples in a bit of the rendered bacon fat. I then stirred in about ¼ cup of maple syrup and 1 teaspoon of ground ginger. I didn’t use cinnamon because the idea of cinnamon and bacon did not appeal to me; the spiciness of ginger seemed like it would meld with the bacon much better. I gave the mixture a taste and found it lacking something. I added a pinch of salt and then surveyed my spices to figure out what I could add to punch things up. Cinnamon was still out and allspice seemed wrong, so I threw in a dash of nutmeg. I gave everything another taste and knew immediately that nutmeg had no place in this filling. It didn’t taste terrible, but it was obviously not what the apples needed. Although good, Apple-Maple-Bacon Pie filling perfection will have to wait for another time.

As for the crust, I used 50% all purpose flour and 50% white whole wheat flour this time. The result? Not much different from 100% white whole wheat flour. I was able to get away with less water, but when I rolled out the dough it cracked and tore miserably. I patted the torn circles of crust together in the muffin tin, but my plan to have a full upper crust was completely dashed and I just fashioned together a makeshift lattice with strips of dough. For a bit of crunch and extra flavor, I sprinkled some turbinado sugar and some grey sea salt on top of the crust.

The pies came out of the oven all bubbly and golden looking. I let them cool for a little and took a bite. They were…okay. Most notably the filling needed more sugar. What tasted good in the pan was not sufficient for a pie filling nor did it provide the right texture. See, when I eat apple pie, first I eat all the apples. Then I eat the top crust. Then I eat the luscious, gooey, bottom crust covered in all that sweetness that bleeds out of the sugared apples in the oven. Sadly, there was no apple-y goodness on my bottom crust here. While the bacon did add a lovely smoky, saltiness to the filling, the ginger was entirely absent. And the crust? Well, it seems that even at an equal split of white whole wheat and all purpose flour, there was still that unmistakable wheaty flavor. Even though it may be healthier, it’s not what I want in my pie crust. I’d rather savor a small serving of pie with perfect, unhealthy crust than a lackluster pie that satisfies none of my pie desires.

It’s back to all white flour crusts I go. As for the filling, I’m thinking maybe some freshly grated ginger could turn up the flavor a bit. I’m also curious to see how some sage would work with the apples and the bacon, although I don’t know that I could mix sage with ginger. We shall see, for mark my words, I am not done with apples, maple, and bacon yet.

Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes

About a year ago I went to Paciugo, a gelato shop in my neighborhood, with the intention of sampling a plethora of different gelato flavors. Little did I know that I would have the best gelato (or ice cream, for that matter) of my life and be haunted by the memory from that point on. The flavor: Chocolate Chipotle Butter Pecan. I know, I know…that doesn’t sound spectacular, but bear with me here. Just imagine the flavor of deep dark chocolate augmented by the smoky, subtle heat of the chipotle, with the nutty, buttery pecans cutting through all the richness. It was unexpectedly fantastic.

I’ve been in love with the chocolate-chipotle combination since. During a recent Chicago Women Cooks-in-Training meetup, I ventured to the Spice House in Evanston for the first time where I snagged some grey sea salt, dried lavender, green tea powder, and, of course, ground chipotle. I’d copied a recipe from one of my mother’s Sunset magazines some time ago – Mexican Chocolate Cakes – and I knew immediately that I would substitute their use of cayenne for the chipotle. The recipe itself is pretty simple, though I admit that I was impressed by their forgoing of creams and lots of eggs for oil, milk, and vinegar to create moistness and softness. I teetered a bit on whether or not to double the amount of ground chipotle, given that cayenne provides much more direct heat than chipotle, but remembering the moral of the Acorn and Butternut Squash Pie, I trusted my instincts and threw in another dose. I must say, I’m glad I did.

 

Upon first bite, you’re immediately greeted by the tender, rich chocolate cake, followed by a hint of smokiness, and ending with just a touch of the heat. Just a ¼ teaspoon of chipotle would have been too little. There’s also a hefty dose of cinnamon in the mix, giving the cake a nice rounded spiciness. I love that there are three distinct sensations here, hitting three different areas of the mouth. I don’t know that you’d be able to specifically identify the chipotle if you didn’t know it was there, but you would definitely be able to pick out the different flavors occurring therein.

If I were to serve this to someone, I think I’d top it off with a thin layer of dark chocolate ganache, sprinkled with some toasted chopped pecans. But for me, in my must-experiment-with-ground-chipotle-NOW! state, a dusting of powdered sugar was all I needed before devouring more cupcakes than I’d like to admit.

Oh, chocolate and chipotle. You are my new favorite flavor combination. (Don’t tell peanut butter.)

[I’ve decided to start sharing my recipes, so here you go:]

  

Chocolate Chipotle Cupcakes 

The original recipe was designed for a two-layer cake, but I halved it for my experiment and found it easily makes 16 standard cupcakes.

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ¼ cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¾ tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground chipotle
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup olive oil
1 large egg
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
¾ tablespoon vanilla extract
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners.

Whisk cocoa, flour, sugars, cinnamon, baking soda, chipotle, and salt in a bowl to blend. Add milk, oils, eggs, vinegar, and vanilla; whisk until smooth. Pour into muffin tins, filling no more than ¾ full.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in each cake comes out clean. [Okay, here is where I’ve goofed because I didn’t record how long I let the cupcakes bake. The original recipe calls for the cakes to bake for 45 minutes, but cupcakes take less time, rarely more than 20 minutes. Add to that the fact that I have one of those ¾-sized, small apartment ovens that makes thing bake a little faster than normal. I would say let them bake for 9 minutes, rotate the pan (You always rotate your baked goods, right? Good.), let them bake for another 7 minutes or so, then start checking them for doneness. The idiosyncrasies of your own oven always determines the final baking time.]

Let cupcakes cool in pan for 10 minutes. Invert on a wire rack and turn right-side-up to cool. Sift powdered sugar onto cupcakes or top with the frosting or icing of your choosing.