Posted in Pie, Recipes, tagged National Pie Day, Pie Recipes, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield on January 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »
It’s National Pie Day!
A yummy hooray to that!
My dad always says he only likes two kinds of pie – hot and cold. So for all you pie lovers out there, here are a few of my favorite pie recipes.
Let’s start with a recipe for the flakiest, best pie crust.
Orange Dream Pie (great in the summer!)
She Who Will Be Making a Pie Today
Posted in Desserts, Entertaining Ideas, Holidays, Puddings and Custards, tagged New Year's dessert, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield on December 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »
If you’re looking for an elegant show-stopping dessert to ring in the new year, this one definitely fits the bill.
Simple and beautiful, your guests will be wowed!
Bubbly Dessert
1 tbsp. unflavored gelatin
2 cups cold white grape juice, divided
2 tbsp. sugar
2 cups club soda or champagne
8 fresh strawberries or raspberries
In a small saucepan, sprinkled gelatin over 1 cup of the cold grape juice. Let stand for one minute. Heat over low heat stirring until gelatin is completely dissolved. Stir in sugar. Remove from heat, stir in remaining grape juice. Cool to room temperature.
Transfer gelatin mixture to a large bowl. Slowly stir in soda or champagne. Pour half of the mixture into eight champagne or parfait glasses. Add a berry to each glass (if using a strawberry, remove hulls first). Chill glasses and remaining gelatin mixture until almost set, about an hour.
Place the reserved gelatin mixture in a blender, cover and process until foamy. Pour into glasses. Chill for three hours or until set.
Makes 8 servings.
Posted in Desserts, Entertaining at Home, Pie, Recipes, tagged Pie Crust, Savvy Entertaining, Shanna Hatfield on December 27, 2013| 2 Comments »
Because my dad has never met a pie he hasn’t liked – I’m sharing this easy pie crust recipe. It is the best ever!
Ingredients for the best pie dough ever!
Combine dry ingredients until coarse and crumbly.
After adding liquid, let the dough rest covered in the fridge for 45 minutes. Then roll out on a well-floured surface.
Ready for a pan.
I was nearly giddy at this point in the game because the crust was so easy to handle. Mine would have been in about 10 pieces of flaky messiness at this point with my old stand-by pie crust recipe.
Here’s what the bottom layer looks like with a beautiful berry filling. Did I mention we made three pies?
And the top crust goes on so easily. Yes, I am a big believer that a little butter is good and another pat or two is even better! There are no finished photos of the berry pie because Miz Sunshine grabbed it hot out of the oven and ran off to pick up little Miss Sunshine!
Vodka Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 sticks cold butter, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup cold vodka
1/4 cup cold water
Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble coarse crumbs ). Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.
If, like me, you do not have a food processor, get ready to apply some arm muscle and work the dough together with either a fork or pastry cutter until all flour is mixed in and it is crumbly.
Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.
Generously flour a clean, flat surface and your rolling pin. Divide dough in half and roll out one half, turning dough over between rolls to keep from sticking to counter or surface. Place in a pie pan and fill with favorite filling or prick with a fork and bake shell until golden brown then fill.
Posted in Christmas, Cookies, tagged Christmas Cookies, Shanna Hatfield, Sugar Cookies on December 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
If you only make one type of cookie for the holidays, make sure it is sugar cookies. These are so, so yummy!
Most everyone has a favorite cookie recipe and this is one of mine. I make this for Christmas every year and have been seen I was about 17.
I loved to bake when I was a kid and received my first Easy Bake oven when I was 5. That was a great Christmas. I remember whipping up something to give to my grandma who had come to stay with us for the holiday.
Experimenting with recipes was something I did, and still do, enjoy. It was this love of experimenting that led me on a quest for the best sugar cookie when I was in my early teens. It had to be soft and moist, light and flavorful. After many, many trials and errors, I came up with this recipe that never fails to deliver soft, delicious cookies.
In fact, when I made them last night, Captain Cavedweller wandered in as I was pulling the last tray from the oven. Before I knew what had happened, he inhaled eight of them, some before they were even frosted. For someone who rarely eats sweets, he was really going to town on them. I had to stand guard over the rest just to get them frosted!
Give them a try and let me know what you think. And hopefully you can get most of them frosted and decorated before they disappear!
Ingredients for Sugar Cookies
Cream butter and sugars.
Add in eggs, vanilla and lemon juice.
Mix together dry ingredients and add gradually to creamed mixture.
Chill dough, once mixed, for about an hour.
When you are ready to roll out the dough, make sure your surface is adequately floured. The dough can be a bit sticky.
Cut out your favorite shapes. Mine would be snowflakes!
Pop into the oven and bake until just set – about 6-8 minutes.
Let cookies rest in the pan when you remove from the oven for just a minute before moving to a wire rack to completely cool.
Frost and…
Enjoy!
Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
dash of lemon juice
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups flour
Frosting
Cream together butter and sugars. Add in eggs, vanilla and lemon juice. Mix dry ingredients together and gradually add into creamed mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Generously flour a flat surface and your rolling pin. Scoop out half the dough and roll until about 1/4 inch thick. You want to work fairly quickly at this point because the warmer the dough gets the stickier it becomes and you don’t want to add more flour. Cut into shapes and bake about 6-8 minutes or until cookies are just set. You do not want them to get brown at all. Cool in pan for one minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool completely. Frost and decorate then watch them disappear.
You can use a royal icing if you are of a mind to stir up a batch or, if you are a lazy slug like me, I whip out a can of Betty Crocker vanilla frosting and frost away. I also like to use decorator gels, especially the sparkly variety, along with sprinkles!
Apple Pie Bites
Old Fashioned Apple Pie
Raspberry Cream Pie
Savvy Entertaining 