Tag Archives: pieathalon

Pieathalon 9 – Summer Pie

Long-time followers will remember my participation in this annual event. In past years I would subject my neighbour, affectionately known as Crazy Neighbour Dude, to being the official taste tester of the pies I’ve had to produce. Alas, this year I don’t have the luxury of him as a guinea pig. Earlier this year we moved from California to Oregon and Crazy Neighbour Dude moved to Vegas. We are now just statistics in the Grand Exodus from California, and I don’t know my new neighbours well enough to try to poison them. Maybe by next year.

Summer Pie

Summer pie comes from the 1971 Winnie-The-Pooh-inspired cookbook The Pooh Cook Book. I love me some Winnie-The-Pooh. If you don’t you’re a broken and sad person and I have no use for you.

Serves 6
8 digestive biscuits
1 level tablespoon castor sugar
1½ oz butter or margarine
For the filling:
1 small tin sweetened condensed milk
¼ pint double cream
2 lemons
¼ lb black grapes

Find a rolling pin, a mixing basin, a saucepan, a tablespoon and a dessertspoon. Find also a 7″ shallow pie plate, a lemon squeezer and a grater.

Crush biscuits with a rolling pin to make fine crumbs and place the crumbs in a mixing basin. Add the sugar. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, draw off the heat and using a fork stir in the biscuit crumb mixture. Mix well.

Spoon the mixture into the centre of the pie plate. Using the back of a tablespoon, press the mixture over the base and proud the sides of the dish to make a biscuit pie crust. Chill in the refrigerator for an hour or so until firm.

Place the condensed milk and cream into a mixing basin. Finely grate the rind of 1 lemon. Squeeze the juice from 2 lemons and strain it. Add to the mixture along with the lemon rind. Stir with a wooden spoon to mix and the mixture will go quite thick in the basin.

Pour the filling into the chilled biscuit pie crust and spread level. Wash, half and deseed the black grapes, arrange them in a ring around the edge of the pie to decorate.

Chill the pie for several hours for the filling to set firm. Then cut in wedges and serve.

Baker’s Notes:

Ingredient adjustments:
Digestive Biscuits = Biscoff Cookies
Double Cream = Heavy Whipping Cream
Grapes = Raspberries

When you live in a small town in the Oregon countryside, fancy things like Digestive Biscuits from the UK are sparse, so I opted to do the crust using BIscoff cookies. Which come in handy little two-packs that they promote as “Airline size” – because that’s a marketing ploy that makes sense? But whatever, they taste good and do the trick for the crust.

The pie, however, was just a puddle of sugar that never actually set. I mean it pretended to. I left it in the fridge for 2 days before trying to cut it and there was no visible wiggle, but nope. Nothing doing. This could be because heavy whipping cream isn’t the same consistency as double cream. Also, I substituted raspberries for grapes because that’s just a weird pie topper as far as I’m concerned. Grapes are for wine.

My husband, the Poor Bastard, volunteered as tribute this year and wound up slurping up raspberries and cream with some crumble. While he didn’t complain about being experimented upon, he did tell me I was good to toss the whole thing out because our medical insurance won’t cover the heart surgery eating this whole pie would inevitably lead up to.

My apologies Battenburgbelle for any disappointment the execution of her pie may bring.

2022 Pieathletes:
Dinner Dinner is Served 1972- Candy Apple Cheese Pie
Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen – Praline Pumpkin Pie
Kitchen Confidence – Zucchini Pie
Book of Cookrye – Yul Brenner’s Pie
Silver Screen Suppers – Sagittarius Hamburger Pie
Retro Food for Modern Times – Lime Pie with Creme de Menthe
The Nostalgic Cook- Veal, Ham and Tongue Pie
Grannie Pantries – Apricot Mallow Pie
Culinary Adventures with Camilla – Chocolate Angel Pie

Pieathlon 8 – Rum and Butterscotch Pie

10 Replies

Long time readers will recall the annual pie challenge thrown down by Dinner is Served 1972. For those of you new to the club, long story short a bunch of vintage recipe bloggers swap pie recipes and endeavour to master long loved/forgotten/dreaded pie and report back on our successes and missteps. You’re welcome.

Recipe
1 tablespoon rum
1 package butterscotch instant pudding
18 gingersnaps
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Light cream

Instructions
Crush 12 gingersnaps and mix with sugar, butter and 1 tablespoon of water. Spread over bottom of 8-inch pie plate. Cut 6 gingersnaps in half, arrange around edge of pie plate. Prepare pudding according to package directions, using combined rum and cream instead of milk. Pour pudding into gingersnap shell. Chill for at least 2 hours. Serves 6.

Looks easy as pie, right? It’s 2021, and easy, like God, left the universe in late 2019. I swear to Cheezits that Jell-O Instant Butterscotch Pudding is the toilet paper of 2021. Nowhere I looked locally could I find a single solitary box. I tried Target, Walmart, the local market, Instacart. Not one single fucking box was anywhere to be found. What are you people doing with all the pudding? I tried Amazon and if I wanted 24 boxes I could get them for $30. I don’t need 24 fucking boxes of pudding. I just wanted to make one pie not get into pudding wrestling.

Since I was missing one of the key ingredients, I had to make the pudding from scratch, which kinda leveled up the pie a smidge. I used the Unbelievable Butterscotch Pudding recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. And since I was being all kinds of fancy now I substituted Knob Creek Bourbon for the rum as the pudding recipe called for bourbon – and I was afraid that a bourbon/rum double whammy might offend my clearly sophisticated palate. Also, 100 proof is 100 proof bitches.

The pudding came out delicious. I highly recommend the recipe. I also highly recommend Knob Creek. While I didn’t follow exactly what Taryn sent me as my challenge, I do consider sitting on my kitchen floor in my pjs drinking bourbon while eating cookies dunked in pudding on brand for 2021.

Checkout the pies made by the other bloggers:

Retro Food for Modern Times

The Nostalgic Cook

Dr. Bobb’s Nostalgic Kitchen

Silverscreen Suppers

Recipes for Rebels

Grannie Pantries

A Book of Cookrye

Dinner is Served 1972

Pieathalon 2020 – Clusterfuck Pie

13 Replies

I’ve given all I can give to this year. Haven’t we all? Pandemic, record unemployment, racial injustice, unsurvivable storm surges, and now I have baked a pie that sucks as much this year does. And I’ve done it twice. This year is just a clusterfuck on every level.

When I got this recipe, I took Mrs.Leonard Krallman at her word that this was a “gude” one. Well, fuck her. It isn’t. Maybe in the 18th century, when smallpox and infrequent bathing was all the rage, a runny pie with soggy bread bits was a delicacy, but in 2020, it’s just another form of mockery. You want a good pie, but no, 2020 says “Fuck that. You don’t deserve pie.”

Gathering ingredients

First off the instructions are vague at best, and so the baker is left to make assumptions about the process. Basically, just bung it in a bowl, stir, pour between two pie crusts, set the oven to the temperature of your choosing, and pray for the best.

From the onset, between the vinegar and the water I thought the recipe called for way too much liquid. 6 cups of liquid between all of the ingredients and nothing that would really bind or cause the ingredients to gel. Maybe substitute dark corn syrup for the molasses? Maybe leave the fucking water in the well?

mmmmmm…. crumbs sinking

Fancy, eh?

Not fancy.

I tried leaving it overnight in the fridge to see if that helped solidify the center, but no go. It was still soupy and running all over the place when sliced. Most “crumb” pies call for the addition of some kind of fruit, generally apples. Maybe that would have helped a bit here. Maybe it would have made for sad runny apple pie. I did a little digging on the Googles and the closest relative I found find to this culinary abomination was an Amish Vanilla Crumb Pie.

Poor Bastard

Crazy Neighbor Dude

But undaunted by crushing disappointment, I fed it to my husband, Poor Bastard, and Crazy Neighbour Dude who some of you may remember from years past. Neither was pleased to have been honored with a slice of pie. Crazy Neighbor Dude’s official review was “It has this beyond weird taste of that Mexican pumpkin candy. Oddly there’s an after taste but it doesn’t linger in the mouth that long(thank god!).” The Poor Bastard is sleeping in another room until he decides to forgive me.

And with this ends another culinary adventure courtesy of Dinner Is Served 1972‘s annual Pieathalon. Here’s hoping 2021 is better for all of us, all the way around.

Also, as of the time of this writing, they still have not arrested the cops who killed Breonna Taylor. Why the fuck not? Say her name. Over and over and over until they finally hear us.

The cookbook was compiled by a Louise Henderson, with illustrations by J. Paul Hisey. It looks like the pair compiled 4 different books/pamphlets in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

That One Time I Fed Crazy Neighbor Dude Cat Food (Pieathalon 2019)

13 Replies

Every year I enter into Yinzerella’s (Dinner is Served 1972) pie contest. I start off really enthused for this project. I like pie. I also like submitting something quasi-fucked up for someone else to have to make. I love to submit stuff from Weight Watchers, because, well, they are invariably nasty. Like this year I offered up cherry pies that are made from cherries, gelatin, bread crumbs, and the tears of out of work carnies. Usually, in return, I get something edible. The other participants aren’t quite as evil mischevious as I am. Until now. Apparently, Kelly at Velveteen Lounge has decided it’s time I get my comeuppance. This year, I get to make a cat food pie. Thanks, Kelly.

Salmon CUSTARD Pie. Just let that sink in for a moment. I’ll wait.

Now, I’m not a fish girl. Well, lemme clarify that. I like the occasional fish stick or tuna sandwich, but other than that I have no interest in it. Let’s be honest, it smells funky. Ever had someone in your office heat up their fish lunch and thought about all the ways you could disembowel them? So, suffice to say, there’s no way in hell I would be taste testing this dish. So, who you gonna call? Crazy Neighbor Dude that’s who. He’s like Mikey. He’ll eat anything I offer him. Including baked cat food it would appear.

So, this nightmare starts with salmon. Correction, CANNED salmon. Because, of course, it does. Have you ever opened a can of salmon?

It’s slimy. It’s got all kinds of manky skin bits. And bones. Fucking bones. Why can’t they take those out? Whatever happened to work ethic? Would it be so hard to go the extra mile not to make me dig my fingers in nasty slimy fishy bits?

The green onions are about the only part of this recipe that doesn’t make me want to gag, and the smell of them cooking in butter does what it can to mitigate the stench of the canned salmon. Well, that and copious amounts of Lysol, bless its chemical-laden heart.

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl. We’re all agreed that this looks like vomit. And it’s probably triggering your gag reflex as much as mine. Good times. Thanks, Kelly.

Toss into pie crust, bake. And text Crazy Neighbor Dude to come fetch.

His first question was “So, it’s like salmon, eggs and green stuff?” Nailed it in one Crazy Neighbor Dude!

So, I sent him on his merry way with his pie and went back to drinking and periodically spraying Lysol every time I got a whiff of fish. Then, my phone starts buzzing.

It’s entirely possible that I’m going to have to move. Thanks, Kelly.

Salmon Custard Pie Recipe is from the Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook Circa 1965

Pieathalon 2019 Participants
The Homicidal Homemaker
The Nostalgic Cook
Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en
Vincent Price Legacy UK
Grannie Pantries
A Book of Cookrye
Retro Food for Modern Times
Dinner is Served 1972
Kitchen Confidence
Doctor Bobb’s Kitschen
Culinary Adventures with Camilla
Recipes 4 Rebels
Silver Screen Suppers

Cherry Pies

3 Replies

1 cup frozen unsweetened cherries or (30 small fresh pitted cherries)
1/2 cup cold water
Artificial sweetener to equal 4 teaspoons sugar, or to taste
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
Dash of cinnamon
2 slices enriched white bread, crumbed
2 tablespoons imitation (or diet) margarine

Combine cherries, cold water, sweetener, gelatin, and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until gelatin is dissolved. Reserve one-fourth of the bread crumbs. Divide remainder in half and press against bottom and sides of 2 individual pie dishes. Divide cherries evenly into dishes, and sprinkle each portion with equal amounts of remaining crumbs. Bake at 350° (moderate oven) for 10 minutes or until topping browns. Dot each pie with 1 tablespoon imitation margarine, and bake 1 minute longer. Makes 2 servings.

Pieathalon 2018 – Meet Crazy Neighbor Dude

16 Replies

As y’all might recall, once a year I participate in Dinner is Served 1972‘s pieathalon with a bunch of other vintage obsessed food bloggers. We swap recipes and bake what we’re assigned. Because I’m a Class A bitch, I always submit something horrible for someone else to make. That’s how I roll. This year I offered up “Cool Mint Cookie Pie” which I’m pretty sure tastes like tinted green sadness. In return I received Dutch Peaches and Cream Pie.

According to the Googles, there’s nothing Dutch about a Dutch pie. And honestly, there’s nothing about this pie that made me want to eat it. That’s where Crazy Neighbor Dude comes in.

I’m super lucky, given that I’m a Class A bitch, to have good neighbors on both sides of my home. On one side the kids babysit my dogs when I’m out of town, and on the other side Crazy Neighbor Dude is my safety net. He’s scared off whackjobs from my yard, taken me to the ER, and has actually babysat me. In exchange, I bake for him. He gets cookies, cupcakes and I even got him his own pie plate that he drops off to have refilled with homemade pecan pie. The poor bastard I’m married to doesn’t get the same kind of homebaked love. (Class A bitch, remember?)

So, this recipe is pretty simple. Even easier when you half-ass it like I did. The pie crust came from the Pillsbury Doughboy and the peaches came pre-sliced in a can.

Pre-sliced peaches FTW

Throw on some sugar, flour and cinnamon

Slather it up with sour cream and a little more cinnamon sugar

Baked up and oozing.

And then delivered it to Crazy Neighbor Dude! Btw… I have him so well trained that all I have to do is text him the word “Driveway” and he comes running.

Meet Crazy Neighbor Dude. Yes, that’s a cannon in his yard.

Crazy Neighbor Dude’s official review:

Just had a slice of pie, still slightly warm and I gotta say! It tasted classic. Warm peach is always delicious. The top layer was quite tricky on the eyes. Lol. It looks like it’d be crusty but when I cut into it it was very soft. Lol. The texture is quite amazing. It has a perfect amount of crunch to it.

So… there you have it. Crazy Neighbor Dude approved.

5th Annual Pieathalon Pieathletes

Yinzerella
Dinner Is Served 1972
Kate’s Pie

Kelli
Kelli’s Kitchen
Chocolate Mousse Pie
Dr. Bobb
Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen
Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie
Kelly
Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en
Marguerite Patten’s Cheese Pie
Jenny
Silver Screen Suppers – The Wonderful World of Film Star Eating and Drinking
Sweet Onion Pie
Kari
The Nostalgic Cook
Tansey
Poppy Crocker
Granny Pantries
Strawberry Ginger Pie
The Battenburg Belle
Battenburg Belle
Frosty Vanilla Pie
Sally
Mycustardpie.com
Mock Pecan Pie
Taryn
RetroFoodForModerntimes
Vincent Price Pineapple Meringue
Camilla
Culinary Adventures With Camilla
Peaches and Cream Tart
Peter Fuller, Curator of Vincent Price Legacy UK
The Sound of Vincent Price & Vincent Price Legacy UK
Puddin n’ Pie
Renee Quintana
Tortillas and Honey
French Raspberry Pie
Unofficial Mad Men CookBook
Aloha Meringue Pie
Retro Mimi
Once Upon a Salad
The Millionaire
Sue
Vintage Cookbookery
Yul Brenner’s Walnut Pie
Wendy
A Day in the Life on the Farm
Tyler Pie
Clara Silverstein
Heritagerecipebox.com
Olde English Egg Nog Pie
S.S.
A Book Of Cookrye
Cool Mint Cookie Pie
Debra
Eliot’s Eats
Apricot Meringue Pie
Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp
BookClub CookBook
Weight Watchers “Almost a Pie”
Greg Swenson
Recipes4Rebels
Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie
Kaci
Homicidal Homemaker
Lemon Beer Sponge Pie

Pieathalon 2016 – Transparent Pie

12 Replies

Transparent
Function:	adjective
1 a : transmitting light so that objects lying beyond are entirely visible b : fine or sheer enough to be seen through 
2 : easily detected or understood
- trans·par·ent·ly adverb

Things that are transparent:

This Dress

This Chair

This Creepy Fish

Things that are not transparent:

This Pie

What is also not transparent is the reason why anyone would want to eat this. While I’m a fan of butter and sugar, there is SO MUCH of it in this pie that it’s weirdly unpleasant to eat.

The recipe comes from the 1955 edition of Massillon Cook Book, which is a regional cookbook from Massillon, Ohio. If this pie gives you a hankering to visit the area, you can find fun things to do there on Facebook.

The Recipe

I beg to differ with the cooking time. It took over 90 minutes at 250°F to get it to cook. The recipe also made enough filling for 2 pies when I made it. So now I need to find some poor unsuspecting neighbor to eat the other pie since my husband, The Poor Bastard, can’t eat both.

Visit TheOther Pieathletes

Yinzerella at Dinner Is Served 1972 (http://www.dinnerisserved1972.com) Peanut & Beer Pie

Poppy at Grannie Pantries (http://granniepantries.blogspot.com/) Lemon Meringue Pie

Kelly at Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en (http://velveteenloungekitsch-en.blogspot.com). Heidenische kuchen (Heathen Cake)

Greg at Recipes4Rebels (http://www.recipes4rebels.com) Fluellen’s Pie

Taryn at Retro Food For Modern Times (http://www.retrofoodformoderntimes.com) Lemon Potato Pie.

S S at A Book of Cookrye (http://abookofcookrye.blogspot.com) Chocolate “Pie”.

Silver Screen Suppers (http://www.silverscreensuppers.com) Creme De Cacao Pie.

Battenburgbelle (http://www.battenburgbelle.com) Fatty Arbuckle’s Delight!

John The Hedonizer (http://www.foodandwinehedonist.com) Fidgety Pie.

Bittersweet Susie (http://bittersweetsusie.wordpress.com) Star Gazy Pie

Ruth at Mid-Century Menu (http://www.midcenturymenu.com) Brandy Apple Pie

Erica at Retro Recipe Attempts (http://retrorecipe.wordpress.com) Mai Tai Pie!

Lookit! I’m A Pieathlete!

17 Replies

I know, it’s weird. I don’t normally write posts on this blog. I just fill your inbox and Facebook feed with horrors from your childhood and long lost favorite dishes that should stay lost. But every so often an opportunity comes along that cannot be missed. Case in point, Yinzerella‘s Pieathalon challenge. She asked a group of retro food bloggers to submit pie recipes from a bygone era, then she randomly drew out and assigned pies to each of us. Our challenge was to whip up the pie and post about it. I’ll confess that I was a bit mean spirited in my submission as I sent in Prune Whip Pie. I’m pretty sure the blogger who got my recipe was horrified to discover such a thing existed.

As fate would have it, I got Yinzerella’s submission of Peach Pizza Pie. Without even looking at the image or the recipe I was pretty sure she’d sent me something nearly as horrible as Tuna and Pear Pizza. However, it turned out she’s not as mean as I am. (I still like her anyway.)

Peach Pizza Pie
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon mace
2/3 cup orange juice
1/2 cup red currant jelly
1 1-pound 13 ounce can sliced peaches, well drained

Crust: Cream together butter or margarine and confectioners’ sugar. Blend in flour to make a soft dough.

Lookit! It’s a ball of dough!

Pat evenly onto bottom and sides of 12-inch pizza pan; prick well with fork. Bake in moderate oven (350°) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Heh. Heh. They said prick.

Filling: Combine cornstarch, granulated sugar, and mace in a small saucepan.

Lookit! I can follow simple directions.

Stir in orange juice; add jelly. Cook and stir till mixture thickens and boils; cook 2 minutes more. Cool slightly.

Had to use the fancy foreign stuff. That makes it gourmet.

Arrange peaches in single layer in baked shell, forming circles, on inside the other.

These were more hunks than slices. Whatever.

Spoon glaze over. Chill. Trim with whipped cream. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

Sooooo fancy.

So easy recipe, no? Sure. Buy how did it taste? As one would expect from a recipe book published in 1966 that sold for $1.95, it was pretty meh. It tasted like peaches, with some glaze on a not very good pseudo-shortbread crust. It would have been easier to just dip the peaches in jelly and spritz them with whipped cream. And less dishes to do!