Pie!

I do not recall ever making a true* pie before. You know - cutting cold butter into flour, making pretty edges on the crust, prepping the filling, etc.
I love a good piece of homemade apple pie, but I would never attempt to make it myself. No culinary desire to do so. Until this past weekend...

I asked ShankRabbit what kind of dessert he would like for his birthday.

"Pecan pie. Man, I LOVE pecan pie," he said, practically drooling.
My look of confusion must have signaled further explanation.
"It's my dad's fault - it's his favorite as well. Wait...you didn't know my favorite pie is pecan?"

I've known this man for 9 years, been married to him for almost 3, and I would have never guessed pecan pie as his favorite. The only pie I've ever seen him consume was pumpkin (this man makes a kick-butt pumpkin pie, I must say).

My first thought was "maybe I could find a pre-made GF pecan pie?" Before you laugh at me, there is a place in Pewaukee known as Molly's Gluten-Free Bakery. They make excellent GF bakery items (I have a great story about this place, but I'll save it for a later post). Unfortunately, I was not within in their 2 day notice time frame and didn't see "pecan pie" on their list...so I was definitely stuck making my own.

If you have never attempted baking something gluten free, try it sometime. It will humble you. Bland and brittle are just two words that describe the majority of my GF baking attempts.

After a lengthy online search, I settled on combining this GF basic pie crust recipe (from Glutenfreeda.com) with this pecan filling recipe (from Pillsbury.com)

So, I was set to make the pie...except there was a catch. We were having dinner with friends (and their parents) that night, so I had to finish baking it there.

...

Did you catch that? Not only was I bringing them a GF pecan pie that I had never tried before, but I had to finish baking it in someone else's kitchen (a.k.a. an oven I was not familiar with).

[Cue minor freak out]

After I calmed down a bit, I figured, "hey, if this pie sucks, at least we'll have a funny story to tell" and I would have a great blog post.

Pie was eventually baked and consumed...with delight. I've never had pecan pie before so I can't give a true comparison, but I can tell you that it did not taste GF at all. It was darn tasty.

There were quite a few people at dinner that night, so the pie servings were pretty small. I decided to make another pecan pie a few days later...you know, to see if I could make it just as good.

My stomach says yes.

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* Our Thanksgiving Pumpkin pies don't count because we use a simple cereal pie crust. Very easy, very yummy.