Honey, I Shrunk the Pies!

Happy Pieathalon People of the internet!  Yep, it’s that special time of year when a group of bloggers get together and bake the good, the bad and the ugly of vintage pies!  It’s also my birthday week  so it’s double the celebrations for me!  Pie and champagne!  Life, my friends, is good indeed!😍

Let’s get down to it, shall we?

The Pie

Pie choice day is always exciting.  What will that email from Yinzerella reveal?  There is always a slight worry in the excitement –  I am happy to have an odd pie – but not too odd.  One of my favourite parts of Pieathalon is that I get to eat a pie so I always give a little silent prayer.  “Please do not let this contain anything disgusting like offal or beetroot.  Or sugary onions.”   Speaking of the sugary onions, my recipe came from The Nostalgic Cook who sent Jenny the Sweet Onion Pie recipe last year! 

Luckily the Gods, (and Kari and Yinzerella) smiled down on me.  The pie I received was a gorgeous sounding Honey Cream Cheese Pie from Sunset’s New Kitchen Cabinet Cookbook from 1938.  It is described as a “not-quite-so rich version of the very rich German Cheesecake.  This Honey Cream Cheese Pie will be welcomed by everyone”.  It was more than welcomed by me.     I had most of the ingredients which is important when you are leaving the country for a month!  I did not want to buy things only to have to throw away any leftovers because we were going away!

This book looks great.  I love the little cartoony insets.  The recipe page also had a v cute cartoon for a less than appealing sounding carrot mould.

Speaking of which…remember a  few Pieathalons ago, when I made the Lime Jello Pie?  I totally forgot that I had moved it to the fridge in the garage so the housesitters could use the main fridge.  When I opened the garage fridge about a week after we got home, it was like I had just put it in there.  It had not changed one iota in the month it had been in there.

Terrifying!!!!!

The Song

Every year I get a song stuck in my head at Pieathalon time.  For my first Pieathalon it was Waterloo by Abba. For the lime jello pie I went a bit hair-metal and subbed in the words “Lime Jello Pie” into “Sweet Cherry Pie”

There were two contenders this year.  The first was, of course “Sugar Pie Honey  Bunch” by the Four Tops.  But nah, too obvious.  The song that stuck was  “Honey Child, what can I do?” by The Ballad of The Broken Seas.  Which became Honey Pie what can I do?  Which then morphed into….no, we’ll get to that…

Ch…ch…changes

The recipe for the pie says that it is big!  Enough for 8 which was way too big given our impending departure.  There were three eggs in the original recipe and everything else was easily divisible by three so I decided to make a  third of the original recipe.  And also that small pies were going to be easier to distribute out if we didn’t eat them all.  It might be weird to give the neighbours who are picking up our mail a half-eaten pie.  But I think, perfectly acceptable to give them a few freshly baked tartlets as a pre-emptive thank you.

The Bake aka Honey Pie what did I do?

I baked my pies on Saturday afternoon where there was a LOT happening.  We were still booking some accommodation so there was stuff happening on the internet, there were phone calls, there was washing and packing and I don’t know just a lot of things going on.  I was also obsessing about the nutmeg.  Personally, I don’t like it so was trying to decide if I used it on all of the pies, or none or some.

But the making of the pies went perfectly.  There was enough mixture for the 6 small pies and some leftover. I had a little taste of the raw filling, it was really good!!!  I nutmegged three of the six tarts, popped them in the oven and went to hang out the washing.

When I came back inside I noticed a jug of milk on the bench.  And realised that I had totally left the milk out of the recipe!!!!

It was too late to do anything about it. I briefly contemplated pulling the pies out of the oven, scraping out the filling, adding the milk and refilling them but they were already a little bit too set for that.

So, there was nothing to do but to sit and wait to see how these milkless tarts would turn out.

My song quickly became “Honey pies what did I do?”

The Verdict

The honey cream cheese pies looked so gorgeous when they came out of the oven, gorgeous golden domes.  The smell of the baking was divine.  And they tasted delicious!

We had one each while they were still warm from the oven and they were like a cross between a cheesecake and a Portuguese tart.  So tasty.

I don’t know what the milk would have done to these but they were so good without it that I will not add it in when I make these again, which I will definitely do!

We had no leftovers to give neighbours or anyone else!  I ate the last one the following night as we waited for the Uber to take us to the airport.  With a little glass of sparkling wine, it was the perfect end to Pieathalon 2019 and the start of the holiday!

Thanks as ever to the amazing Yinzerella who organises this whole shebang each year!

You can find her Pieathalon recipe over at Dinner is Served 1972 and check out all the other pieathletes per the links below.  Why not start with Kelly over at the Velveteen Lounge who got my recipe for Angel Pie?

Here is the full list of this year’s participants.  Some of the links will not be working yet, I will update later today as people post their recipes!

Battenburg Belle baked Betty Crocker’s Hawaiian Pie

Doctor Bobb made a Macaroon Pie

Camilla channeled Alf from Home and Away and made a Flaming peach pie!

Yinzeralla got surreal with a Dali Oasis Leek Pie

Greg got arty, but did not choke on his Artichoke pie

Jenny found her inner Italian with a spaghetti pie

Kaci at the Homicidal Homemaker bammed some berries and produced some Bamberry turnovers

Kari at The Nostalgic Cook, who provided my recipe got a bit saucy with a Cheese Applesauce Pie

Kelly, the angel over at Velveteen Lounge made my Angel Pie

Surly got a Salmon Custard Pie.  Oh dear, I might be surly too….

Peter whipped up some low calorie goodness with a Weight Watchers Cherrie Pies…?

Poppy made Banana Split Pie…I do hope she didn’t fall on the peel!

SS got fidgety with a Huntingdon fidget pie

And finally, here is the musical accompaniment for this post!

Thanks again to Yinzerella for organising this and Kari for the fab recipe!

Have a great week!