A Good Day To Bake

It rained a little bit on and off today and Mr. Moon was back over at Lily's, working on the painting, so I decided to do some baking. I've been picking mulberries as they ripen because it's been a slack year for the fruit, and keeping them in the refrigerator. When my collection of berries got big enough to make a pie, I decided I'd better get it done because those berries were not getting any fresher. 

I made my pastry and I will admit that I screwed up and put in more butter and shortening than I should have which resulted in a very fragile crust. 
La-di-dah.
It's just pie. 
I made enough of the pastry to make one two-crust pie and one one-crust pie because I decided to make Mr. Moon a coconut cream pie which is one of his most favorites and why not? If I'm going to get flour all over the kitchen, I might as well get a lot of flour all over the kitchen and indeed I did. I don't know what was going on with me but flour was flying all over the place and when I made the custard for the coconut cream pie, I got cornstarch on the counter too. I do clean as I go but when you're making two separate pies which involve a lot of different steps, you're just going to make a mess and that's that. 
I mixed the berries with sugar and lemon juice and flour and put that into the bottom crust and then covered it all up with another rolled-out piece of pastry. That needed to be baked at 425° for fifteen minutes and then the oven needed to be turned down to 350° to continue baking. When I got that pie in the oven, I started in on the coconut pie and rolled out the dough for it and put it in the pie plate and because it needed to be blind-baked, I lined the pie crust with aluminum foil which I then filled with dried lentils so that the crust didn't cave in on itself. I keep a bag of lentils just for this purpose. 
That needed to be baked at 425° too so I slid it in next to the mulberry pie but it only baked a few minutes at that temp before I was supposed to turn the oven down which I did but then it seemed like the plain crust just was never going to bake so I turned the oven back up for awhile and honestly- this is not the way to bake. 
HOWEVER, needs must, as they say. 

While all of that silliness was going on, I made the custard part of the coconut cream pie. I sort of followed the recipe and sort of didn't. I was supposed to scald the milk and then add that to the egg yolks and corn starch and sugar in a double boiler over boiling water and whisk those together until thickened. Instead I nuked the milk and coconut milk I used together until it was about scalding temperature and then added it to the yolks and sugar and so forth in a regular pan and just cooked it a very low temperature, whisking the whole time and it thickened very nicely and quickly without a bit of burning. I added the coconut and vanilla and coconut flavoring and by the time I put it in the crust (which was finally done) it was a beautiful consistency. 
And then- on to the meringue! 
All the while this was going on, I was checking my berry pie and pulled it out right before the other pie needed to go in to brown the meringue. 
I managed to successfully get that done and this is what the pies look like and I am not bragging because they are so far from perfect and I know why and now you do too.

The top crust on the mulberry pie is not only vastly imperfect due to the pastry problem and the oven temperature situation, but also because I was supposed to brush the top with milk before I sprinkled the sugar on it and I had just used my pastry brush to do a little clean up on Ralph, the Roomba, and did not want to take the time to wash it properly so I just used my fingers which is obviously not the best way to apply milk to the top of a pie crust.

Thankfully, August won't care what the pie looks like nor will his brother or his parents. And Mr. Moon will eat that coconut cream pie without giving the slightest hint of a fuck about the unevenness of the crust. 

I also made a loaf of bread but that's a whole other story. 

And so, I spent most of the day in the kitchen which I have not done for a long time, and it is now all tidy and neat with everything cleaned up. So I feel as if I've had a fairly productive day overall. 

My husband came home early from Lily's house at which time a little frolic, a little fooling around may have occurred. And now it is getting cooler! Although we didn't get much rain at all (and do we really need more sky-water around here?) what we did get was the harbinger of a day or two of more tolerable weather. We've even turned the AC off and opened up the doors and windows again. The ducks have been bagged and put away but it's not going to get that chilly. 

On a completely different subject, tomorrow marks the beginning of the Donald Trump trial which they are calling the "hush money" trial but of course it's not exactly that. I am almost glad that it's not being televised or broadcast because I would be glued to the couch, watching it if it were. I have no doubt that he will not end up in prison for this but I sure would love to see him squirm when Stormy Daniels gets up on the stand. Or Michael Cohen. Or David Pecker. 
Pecker. How utterly perfect is the name of the man who was responsible for the catch and kills that protected Trump from some of the troubles that his little pecker got him into. 

God, but I would love it if a porn star named Stormy Daniels was the one to finally bring down that criminal. 

Anyway, I'll be checking in to the news sources frequently to see what the reporters are reporting. I know that many people probably don't give a rat's ass about the trial but I am not ashamed to admit that I am not one of them. 

Another Sunday in the books. 

Love...Ms. Moon