Baking Day

Like most of my friends, I spent a good part of today BAKING!  It's Thanksgiving tomorrow! This is what Julia and I did for school this morning. We donned our aprons, and got started with pie crust!

First, we made cherry pie filling. I used one can of regular filling (left), and one can of straight, tart cherries. We added tapioca, almond extract, sugar, and a little butter. Julia stirred until it thickened.

Here's the cherry filling, and the pie crust we made together. I'll take both these to my mom's, and bake it there on Friday. I didn't want to bake it today, and have it sit for 2 days, getting a soggy crust, while we all plowed our way through the other pies.

Then Julia and I started on 2 pumpkin and 1 chocolate pie. I taught her how to make my No-Roll pastry crust from the good ole Southern Sideboards cookbook. You sift into the pie pan 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, and 1 tsp. salt.  Then you whip 1/2 cup oil and 2 Tbls milk with a fork, pour it over the flour, and blend it together, eventually pressing it out with your fingers.  I love this crust -- it's perfect for all "filling" pies, like custards.
Here, Julia presses her crust out.

Anna asked to participate.  Here she blends her crust together.  The olive oil I use makes the yellow color.  Some cooks don't like to bake with olive oil, but it works quite well for me.

The pumpkin pies went into the hot oven.

Here are the 3 finished beauties! The third pie is a chocolate/pecan chess pie.

We also made a batch of Soft Molasses Cookies. We just don't get tired of them! Julia and Anna rolled out all the little balls for me - yay for young helpers!