A few weeks ago, I bought a new kitchen toy for myself, a Dash Mini Pie Maker, like the one you can find here except mine is pumpkin orange.
Of course, I had to give it a Pre-Thanksgiving run to see how it works. I read a lot of online reviews before firing it up, though, so I was prepared for a few of the common problems. I played around with a lot of time variations, sometimes leaving the device open for short periods in the middle of cooking and rotating the pies during the process. It took me eight pumpkin pies before I found a combination that produced a fantastic mini pie.
My first attempt, while still in the device, looked beautiful. Things quickly went south though, after I pulled it out. The filling wasn’t quite finished cooking and the crust lost all structural integrity over the next hour as I continued to experiment. That first pie was easily the worst pie I made.
As you can see in my pictures, the next few pies weren’t really sucessful either. The only positive that came from them was ruling out possible timing methods. Each pie got me one step closer to a successful and delicious pie.
Now, Pie number 6, above, was an interesting failure. I accidentally cut the crust with the wrong side of the pie crust mold, resulting in a crust that was way too small and looked weird. Pie #8, the bottom right pie in the picture above, was the closest to perfection I achieved in this trial. I achieved those results by cooking the pie for 4 minutes with the lid closed, rotating the pie, leaving the pie to cook with the lid open for ten minutes, and then closing the lid and cooking for another 5 minutes. While the edges look burnt, they didn’t taste bad.
I’m looking forward to more experiments with this adorable little kitchen tool and I’m so glad I bought it. Look for more pie experiment posts in the next few weeks as I play around with apple, peach, blueberry, and cherry. And, obviously, there will be more pumpkin pie on the horizon, since that is my favorite kind of pie!
Until next time,
Cathy Marie Bown
Cathy Marie Bown 