Mango Pie

One of my favorite fruit pies in the summer is mango, and conveniently enough, it is also one of the easiest pies to make.  The basis for the recipe (read: the ingredients list) originally came from my friend Shivani, and I then adapted the proportions of which to suit my own tastes.  This is a no-bake pie, requiring only a handful of ingredients, most of which are easily attainable. Mango pulp, unflavored gelatin, cream cheese, sour cream, water, and graham cracker crusts. I say “crusts” plural because this recipe will make multiple pies at once. The only unusual ingredient is the mango pulp, which comes in 30 oz cans. I use alphonse mango pulp, which I get from my local Indian store. This kind of pulp is already sweetened, so the pie does not require any additional sugar. If you are not fortunate enough to live within easy striking distance of an Asian supermarket, the pulp can also be found here.  Alternatively, you can make fresh mango pulp, which defeats the ease of assembling the pie, in my opinion.

Cherry Pie with Almond Crumb Topping

This is my second cherry pie this summer, the previous being a traditional 2-crust pie. Having made a quick lemon meringue pie over the weekend, I was left with enough crust for a single-crust pie. And when I saw the cherries in the supermarket, I decided that now was the time to try the crumb-topped cherry pie that I had been pondering since the last cherry pie I made. I decided to leave the filling basically the same as my previous pie, I have reposted the ingredients below for convenience.

Gluten-Free Boston Cream Cupcakes

My friend Dana, who is gluten intolerant, had a birthday picnic last month.  So, I decided to bake some gluten-free treats that turned out rather well, so I thought I’d share them: gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, and gluten free Boston Cream Cupcakes.

Unlike the cookies, which were from scratch, I decided to try the Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Yellow Cake Mix as a base for the cupcakes.  I hit upon the idea of Boston Cream cupcakes because I had read mixed reviews of the BC boxed mix, so I wanted to be able to dress up the cupcakes a bit, just in case.  And, happily, I discovered that both Jell-o instant pudding mixes and BC tub frostings are gluten-free, which took a lot of guesswork out of the filling and frosting.  Jell-o pudding mixes list “modified food starch” under the ingredients, and this is corn starch unless otherwise stated, Kraft is very diligent about listing allergens.  This opens up a ton of possibilities for flavors and fillings. Obviously, if someone is also casein intolerant, other arrangements for fillings would have to be made. I’m definitely not an expert on non-dairy fillings, but I’ve heard (although I haven’t tried it for myself) that the non-instant pudding works better with soy and almond milk than the instant.

Before trying the cupcakes, I searched around to find other people who had already tried the mix, to see if anyone had tweaked the box directions to get a better result, and I hit upon a fabulous resource, A Gluten-Free Guide, which has all manner of gluten-free info, recipes, restaurant lists, food reviews, etc. On this site was posted a review of the BC gluten-free yellow cake box mix, along with tweaks that the author said vastly improved the cupcakes’ taste and texture (backed up by reviews posted on the site). It called for adding, amongst other things, instant pudding and orange juice directly to the mix. So, I decided to give it a try, and they turned out better than I had even hoped.  However, and I can not stress this enough, pudding flavor does make a difference in taste, and if you can find it, I definitely recommend the French Vanilla pudding over the regular vanilla, for both the cake and the filling.

Triple Berry Pie. Make this now.

Wow. All I can say is, wow. I tried making a triple berry pie on a whim, not really expecting much from it, and I just might have found my favorite fruit pie. Ever. No mean feat, since it had some stiff competition from blueberry and cherry, not to mention key lime and lemon meringue.  But this pie has an edge, at least for my tastebuds. Not only that, but it is incredibly easy to put together. You can probably use any combination of berries you want, adjusting the sugar content accordingly, but I went with fresh blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

Cherry Pie

I have a confession to make. Prior to this pie, I’d never made a cherry pie using fresh cherries before. Or even frozen cherries for that matter.  I’ve always used Comstock cherry pie filling. But after making this pie, I can tell you that I will never use Comstock filling again. Not that Comstock pie filling is bad – it isn’t. And it has a home in certain recipes, such as a cheesecake topping. But in pie form, it tastes nothing like the real thing, and the real thing is fabulous.  This recipe, which I modified from a recipe I found on Smitten Kitchen, is meant for sweet cherries. I searched high and low (too late in the season), because I had my heart set on making a sour cherry pie, but it was not to be. I couldn’t even find frozen sour cherry berries. Next year, I will make sure not to miss my local orchard’s sour cherry picking season, which is typically for 2 or 3 weeks sometime in the middle of June.

Cherries are “stone fruits” or “drupes”, meaning that the fruity flesh surrounds a hard pit, the endocarp that contains the seeds. Cherries are part of the genus Prunus, along with apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, and almonds. Most eating cherries are divided into 2 types: sweet (Prunus avium) and sour (Prunus cerasus).

Wild cherries have been considered good eats since prehistoric times, and the first known example of cultivated cherries dates from 72 BC Rome, where it was introduced by Lucius Licinius Lucullus who was, amongst other things, a Consul of Rome, brother-in-law of Cato and uncle-in-law of Julius Caesar’s assassin Marcus Junius Brutus. Cherries were first introduced to England in the 16th century by Henry VIII.

I made this particular pie for the 4th of July weekend, the “red” to complement the “blue” blueberry pie that I made. Like that pie, this recipe is for a 2 crust pie, although I have seen cherry pies with a crumb top before. And also like this pie, you can do up the top crust in a variety of ways, although I chose star-shaped vents to match the 4th of July theme and my Blue pie. I didn’t take many pictures of this particular pie, but you get the idea.

Blueberry Pie

As part of my summer fruit baking theme, and as part of a delicious 4th of July weekend, I decided to make several fruit pies, the first being blueberry. I love a good blueberry pie. In fact, it might be my favorite fruit pie of all time. It is mostly because of the flavor, but also partly because I am sentimentally attached to blueberries – my Yia-Yia had blueberry bushes in her backyard, and I was forever picking blueberries in the summer when I would visit her. Unfortunately, I dropped the ball with picture-taking with this recipe, and the cherry pie. In fact, for most of my 4th of July recipes: I was working so fast, I didn’t even pause to take good shots. But, the few pictures I have should give you a good idea.

Blackberry Cobbler

On her website, Ree had a debate about cobbler recipes. Now, I’m not normally one for cobbler, but when I saw her pics and saw how easy it was, I figured I’d give it a try. This recipe isn’t a true cobbler however, it seems somewhere between a berry buttermilk cake and a cobbler, I think. But it is nonetheless delicious, and pretty simple to toss together. I had been itching to make something with blackberries, so that's what I used, but you can use whatever berries you wish.