Celebrate with pie!

Or why baking two pies after a full day of work may not have been my best idea to-date...

In honor of September birthdays, we had a rather informally planned (read "oh hey, we should do a birthday thing tomorrow") pitch-in at the office this past week.  I volunteered to bring pie because pie is yummy. 

Also, I had been commissioned to make a pie for a charity event by one of my coworkers, and I like to do test runs on new recipes before they can be served to the general public.  People at the office don't count; they'll eat anything.  My colleagues are always kind enough to volunteer as taste-testers.

I made the Key lime pie first, as it was a 3 step process: graham cracker crust, lime custard, and meringue.  Between graham cracker crushing, egg white beating, and the wholesale slaughter of nearly 2 dozen limes, this pie would be good stress relief for the violence-inclined.

Oh, the horror!  Many limes were sacrificed in the making of this pie.

I hate
greatly dislike
am not a huge fan of meringue, so while this wasn't my first foray into Key lime pie, it was my first meringue pie.  Which may explain why it collapsed...  Next time, I'll stick to whipped cream.

Doesn't have to be pretty to taste good.

By the time the Key lime pie was finished, it was a bit later than I anticipated.  Time and pie wait for no man, so I persevered. 

Unfortunately, I rushed through preparing the red tart cherry filling, so I didn't cook it quite long enough to thicken.

Cherries and sugar- what's not to like?

The pie turned out pretty, but there was definitely a bit of a Soup Factor.

Runaway filling!

Fortunately, this was not a disaster on par with Peach Pie #1.  Cherry Pie #1 was quite edible.  Having learned my lesson in patience, I gave the cherry filling for the commissioned pie a bit more of a boil, and it pulled together quite nicely.

My first sale!  Everybody say "Hi" to Carol.

I don't think I'll quit my day job quite yet.





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