The Woodlands Biotch

so last week i told you about my dreams to make a beautiful thanksgiving dessert table. it took me the better part of two days to pull it off – i guess i’m a little out of practice.

or maybe i just need more.

anyway, as promised, here’s how it all went down. on wednesday, i baked two pumpkin spice cakes; one with nuts, one without. every baker knows the best way to keep the frosting from melting when you frost is to make sure the cakes are completely cooled; so i figured, give ‘em a whole overnight to cool. in the meantime, i formed some pumpkin leaves from white chocolate colored with green food coloring. in hindsight, i probably should have also gone ahead and made the frosting, to let it set up again overnight as well; but i got distracted, cutting out the dozens of leaves for the pie. i didn’t think i’d have time to get theme all cut out, and get the pie assembled, and the cake frosted all before the big meal on thursday. so thursday morning, while the pie baked, i made the frosting and frosted the cake. anyway, in the end, it didn’t come out quite as beautiful as i had hoped, but the flavor, the texture, the consistency, were all more than i expected. and it wasn’t exactly ugly, certainly not wreck-worthy:

better than expected - sooo much better

oh, and turns out, adding a whole can of organic pumpkin to a cake adds quite a bit of heft to a cake (or two, for that matter) so in the end, the whole thing weighed damn near five pounds.

the pie, on the other hand – well, that’s what i get for going against my better judgement on the recipe. there simply wasn’t enough flavor, and while the crust ended up nearly burned, despite lowering the oven racks and lower the temps, the apples didn’t hardly soften and for that matter, the cubed butter didn’t even melt in some places, despite being in the oven for just over an hour. i shouldn’t have put the leaves over the top of a flat crust, essentially doubling the top crust, especially knowing that the leaves would overlap so much, making the crust, in some places, three and four layers deep.

then, because it didn’t get hot enough under all that crust, as the pie cooled on the sideboard during dinner, almost half a cup of juices came out of the apples, returning the bottom crust to a nearly raw state. and finally – my own fault – i had forgotten to add a little water to my egg yolks when i brushed the leaves, making the crust turn a deep brown rather than a golden tan.

my pie... not so much

in the end, i don’t recommend using the recipe i used; and maybe just use their picture as an inspiration, not a guide.