Keep Calm and Bake Pie

Last weekend was the annual Girl Scout Pie Event.  This is mine and Eva’s second year participating and I’m still not sure what the actual purpose is.  It costs me $30 for tickets that in theory I’m supposed to sell.  But, let’s be honest, who do I know that is going to attend?!?  If we don’t sell the tickets, we will have to pay the $30 fee for camp in February.  The fundraiser is to support the camping trip.  Cool.  But I’m spending the $30 either way….so….

 

The domesticated goddess who is Eva absolutely LOVES this event.  The past two years the weekend has fallen on her dad’s weekend.  Which means she gets to spend pretty much the entire weekend with me and without her brother and sisters.  It’s a pretty nice mom and Eva time.  And she seems to enjoy the female gender roles of fifty years ago.

 

On Friday night, we picked up some Mickey D’s and went to the test kitchen for the Girl Scout group bake.  We were once again instructed on how to make the pie crust.  I was once again dumbfounded by the lack of domestic ability in the other mothers.  At least their daughter might know how to make a proper pie in the future. 

 

Eva and I knocked out a total of 4 pies in less than an hour.  We should probably enter a speed baking contest.

 

Saturday afternoon, we cranked up some tunes, donned our aprons and got to baking.

 

 

She is seriously the cutest little baker!

I didn’t realize that I didn’t have enough shortening to make more than 2 pies, so I ended up going to the grocery store for the third time that day.  Also, I bought a steak.  Because…mmmm…..steak!

Eva did not want to go to the store.  It was snowing and cold.  She said she’d be okay staying home and letting me go.  Gee…thanks.

When I got back, she was cozied up in front of the fireplace watching, you guessed it, Gilmore Girls.  We are addicts.

I got the next set of pie crust ready.  She peeled herself away long enough to roll out the dough and pinch the ends. 

Once all of the pie crust was rolled out and in the oven, I got to work on the fillings.  Eva got to work on the 17^th episode of season 3.

We decided to go the custard/pudding route this year.  Mainly because I suck at baking.  I perused the selection of pudding I had on the shelf and came up with four different fillings:

 

Classic Chocolate Mousse

Mint Chocolate

White Chocolate Swirl

White Chocolate Caramel.

 

I also made a pecan pie because that is a sure fire hit with the old people at Church.  But I digress.

 

After the fillings were prepared, I set up a sample tasting for Eva.

 

 

 

She was able to rate each filling and thus decide which pie would go to the judges.

 

 

Gilmore Girls had nothing on eating pudding pie fillings.

The White Chocolate Caramel received a solid 8 from Eva.  The others were in close contention ranging from a 6.5 to 7.5.  Numbers don’t lie, so Eva entered the White Chocolate Caramel into the competition.

The event was, well, uneventful.  We sold all of our pies within the first 10 minutes of our shift.  Those specialty pies are a HUGE success!  For the record, the Pecan Pie was the first to go.  Old people love it!

Eva didn’t win the competition, but she did make and sell the most pies.  And we had a few elderly ladies ask us about our recipes for both the White Chocolate Caramel and the Pecan Pie.

This is a job well done in my book….and that’s all that really matters.