I just made my first pumpkin pie ever! It is also my first real pie of any kind. I dabbled in cheesecakes over the summer, but that doesn’t count – it’s called cheeseCAKE. (See picture below… what, aren’t your pies oval-shaped?)
The recipe I used for the pie can be found here; it’s quite simple and gives both US & UK heating instructions (though god knows about volume/liquid measurements). I used an actual pumpkin which was originally bought for jack-o-lantern purposes. Considering that I have about half a pumpkin leftover now (it was kind of an epic-size pumpkin; jack-o-lanterning it was just intimidating) later this week I plan to be trying pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin soup, too. Maybe I’ll even make Molly’s pumpkin biscuits!
Baking for me tends to be a subjective activity, involving much tweaking of amounts and variations on a basic theme (terms like ‘20 minutes,’ for example, or ‘butter’ are frequently taken as suggestions).
I am also a space cadet. I don’t have a timer here, and remembering to check a clock isn’t my strong suit. Even when I DO have a timer, I frequently forget to turn it on. But I ALWAYS listen to music while baking, from getting out the ingredients to preheating to mixing to baking to cleaning up. It’s an intrinsic part of my process, the soundtrack. So today I had this great idea: making playlists specifically tailored to recipes.
Certain songs could signal when it’s time to check for done-ness, and there would be really high-energy tunes at the end for dishwashing. Songs with a slow build for pulling out ingredients, and steady beats for minimal distraction while measuring and mixing. Alternatively, you could time a recipe to an already existing mix, just note around which songs landmark baking actions occur. A playlist for a pie would have an hour’s worth of ‘baking-time’ music, while a playlist for cookies would have groups of songs in ‘batches!’
-Tara
