Sunday 21 July 2019

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Pie In The Sky

I have to confess, I am not a big pie maker. I love the idea of them, I love getting a slice of them if I ever see one out and about (a fruity one preferably), but I find I have little patience for pastry. Also little skill, but I guess that is in part due to lack of practice. Sweet pies are not a huge thing here in Australia, when we think of pies we normally think of savoury pies. The meat pie is an Australian institution, and there are a few vegan versions around, but really anything savoury and saucy can be stuffed in a single serve pie. Vegan Pie In The Sky, but Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, is 100% in the sweet category of pies. I have only made a few recipes from this book, so this is my first ever recipe round up, but I definitely hope to make more

Basil Peach Pie: This pie called out to me from the moment I bough the book, but I only made it very recently. Frozen peaches aren't a thing here, so I had to wait for peach season. That season being summer, I rarely thought to make a pie while it was so hot and humid, and so the years passed. But finally, I cranked the air con and I was so glad I did! This uses the Buttery Double Crust recipe from the book, and my efforts were a bit messy but overall delicious. The photo in the book has a fancy lattice top, I kept it simple with your basic pie lid. The peaches need to be peeled, and the easiest way I have found to do this is to pour boiling water over them, drain, and let cool. Then it just slips off. I had to bake this for an extra 15 minutes in my oven to cook properly. The basil flavour was quite subtle, you could up it a bit, but all round this pie was amazing.
Rating: :D

Basil Peach Pie


Basil Peach Pie


Chocolate Peanut Butter Tartlets: Chocolate and peanut butter really are a match made in perfection. I love it, my friends love it. This recipe is perfect to share, because it makes adorable little individual tarts and they are also really rich so a little goes a long way. The base is a pressed chocolate cookie crust, topped with a peanut butter based filling and then a delicious ganache on top. The recipe for ganache uses coconut oil, but you can leave it out.
Rating: :D

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tartlets


Brownie Bottom Peanut Butter Cheesecake: As advertised, the base of this cheesecake is a fudgy brownie baked into the bottom of a pie pan. This book doesn't use any vegan cream cheese in the cheesecake, instead basing them on silken tofu, nuts, and/or bananas. This one had peanut butter, mashed banana, and silken tofu. The banana taste was strong in the peanut butter layer, which was still nice but did through off the expected flavour a bit.
Rating: :)

Brownie Bottom Peanut Butter Pie


Chocolate Mousse Tart: I made this beauty for my Mum's birthday a few years ago, a birthday meal that I apparently never got around to posting about. A Chocolate Shortbread Tart Shell is filled with chocolate mousse and then chilled. The book calls for the mousse to be chilled first and then piped in using a pastry bag into a big spiral, but that sounds exhausting and might look like a certain emoji, so I opted to just scoop the filling straight from the food processor into the tart shell and give it a gentle swirl on top. I think it still looks lovely! The mousse is very rich, made from silken tofu and a lot of melted chocolate.
Rating: :)

Chocolate Mousse Tart


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Yoga Kitty


I met this cutie goof at yoga. They were obsessed with rolling around in this little pothole in the carpark, and even let me rub their belly as well! Unfortunately, said pothole was right in front of my car, so I did eventually have to encourage them gentle out of it.

11 comments:

  1. Your chocolate mousse tart looks amazing! I think you made the right choice not piping the mousse in.

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    1. It would have been so much more effort, and I think this is the better looking result.

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  2. OMG, so many pretty pies! I have gotten myself accustomed to making shortcrust pastry (in a food processor) because I just love eating pie. :)

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    1. I do love a food processor to help make the dough!

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  3. The tartlets look so good! And I'd love to try the cheesecake as well!
    What a sweet, friendly kitty and an adorable little belly!

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    1. I felt so blessed to be able to rub that belly!

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  4. OMG look at that adorable fluff-fluff!

    Also the pies look delicious.

    Could you not have used tinned peaches?

    Pies - especially sweet pies - seem to be a really big thing in America. Like pie is more important than cake or pudding to them. As a person of the UK, I don't get the fuss - I always get hung up imaging the dry horrible crust. Probably because I grew up on crumble, which is a very English dessert, I think it came from WWII when there weren't enough ingredients to make a whole pastry for pie, and now having pastry seems restrictive and unnecessary. (Even though I love pastries - like cinnamon rolls and such). Maybe I'm just averse because I was once given a 'vegan' pie that clearly had not been cooked and was just a cigarette-ash-infused underdone pastry with raw apple inside and I had to force down two slices to be polite....

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    1. I love crumble, that has been a big part of my life! I was worried that the tinned peaches might have been too soft and sweet, and let out too much liquid for the pie crust. But it is something to consider for the future!

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    2. Yes, that's true. Tinned would probably add too much liquid which might ruin the pie and have it all fall out the bottom.

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    3. If you need an ice breaker with an American ask them if they prefer pies or cakes, you are either a pie or cake person lol

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  5. I am not a huge pie person, but my husband is. So I have learned to deal with pies lol. I like ones that are more like tarts with chocolate, PB, caramel, and similar creamy flavors. I really liked salted caramel pie but it takes a lot of time to make.

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