TWD: Thanksgiving Twofer Pie

This week Vibi from La Casserole Carrée has chosen our Tuesdays with Dorie recipe of the week. It's been a week or two since participating in TWD. Unfortunately, time did not allow me to do the Kugelhopf and as far as the rice pudding, yeah, I decided not to make that since I know nobody in my house would eat it. I know in the book, Dorie mentions how she has only heard that some people may not like rice pudding. ***raising hand*** I can not stomach rice pudding! The whole texture thing... can't do it! So anyhow, to those who enjoy it, I'm sure it was awesome!

Anyhow, this was my first week back. I was excited to try a pie seeing as how I haven't made one in awhile. The last time I made a pie, I used this awesome pie dough recipe involving just cream cheese, butter, flour, salt, and sugar. The cream cheese I found was actually a new yogurt cream cheese. I tried it and it worked awesome! My local grocery store doesn't sell it anymore though so I had to just use regular cream cheese this time. Should work fine right? Or maybe NOT! UGH, I seriously hate making pie dough. I made a whole batch thinking that I'd have enough to make another pie later. Yeah, not so much! I had to use the whole thing just to get a decent enough round to cover my one pie plate. GRRRR! Oh well. The rest of the pie assembling went smoothly. I followed directions as Dorie instructed and placed my pie into the oven at 450*F. After 10 minutes, I lowered it to 300*F and went about my business.

About a half hour later, I confidently opened the oven and gently inserted a knife expecting to see nothing but maybe a few crumbs. But what did my eyes behold?! I runny, watery mess! WHA?! Okay, no biggie, right?! Just let it bake a little longer and check again... and again... and again... and again... okay seriously -- When is this thing gonna be done?! Well, after 30 additional frustrating minutes, I yanked the thing out of the oven and tossed it onto a cooling rack.

Later in the day, I decided to take a test slice of this taunting pie. I was not pleased. While the pecan topping was very yummy, the pumpkin layer was flavorful, but MUSHY! Yuck! I was expecting it to be firm, like a regulary pumpkin pie. I don't know... mine must not have turned out. I don't know why, but oh well!

So, between the pie dough and the over/underbaking, I think I need to give pie making a rest for awhile. Luckily, I liked the other fall dessert I made the other day WAY better anyhow -- the cranberry-topped orange cheesecake. I'll make that for my Thanksgiving desert. (Who would have thought that I'd be here saying that making that cheesecake was 1000x easier than this pie!) Oh well! I hope others enjoyed this recipe more than I did!