Pumpkin Pie With Brandy Sauce

With Brandy Sauce

Braided Edge









Well I finally got around to making another pie.




I had to visit my diabetes doctor, Dr. Orr, this week and told her about my pie challenge and asked her what her favorite pie is. She told me it was pumpkin. So I made a couple of pumpkin pies, one for her and one for having Scott and Susan over for Thursday night.
In the normal course of events when I make a pumpkin pie I buy Cool Whip® because that is the way The Wife ‘o My Life enjoys it. In keeping with my challenge I needed to make the recipe for the brandy sauce, which is how Irma says it should be served. The brandy sauce starts with ¼ cup or 2 ounces of brandy or cognac so I had to go to the state controlled liquor store. The first task I had: find one. I found one downtown and was surprised how quiet and neat it was. The little “airline” bottles, I was told by the liquor store worker bee, hold 1.7 ounces. Since I needed only two ounces I thought it would be fine to just buy two bottles at $1.50 each and make two batches of sauce; one for us and one for Dr. Orr. As it turned out we used very little of the brandy sauce I made for us because we did not like it, so I just put the remainder in a jar and took it to Dr. Orr this morning. Her receptionist was surprised, but it was not the regular receptionist…I was hoping she would be there, she is really nice and always has an encouraging word.

This recipe called for more pumpkin than there is in a can of pumpkin so I had to buy two cans. I froze two cups of the remainder and will enjoy the other small portion with my dinner tonight. I like to put a little butter and some fake brown sugar on it and heat it in the oven or the microwave, yum!
The pie did not turn out looking like the pumpkin pie I usually make; it was darker and had deep cracks in it after cooling completely. I am not sure if that was due to the recipe or to the fact that I tried to save a little and bought store-brand pumpkin instead of Libby®. In either case Sues and Scott really liked the pie and Scott even liked the brandy sauce. I liked the pie and could take or leave the sauce. Scott’s Susan tried neither as she does not like pumpkin pie and instead had some pizza that we had left from dinner.

Did you notice I tried to make my first "braided" edge on a pie. It did not work a easily as I thought it would. It is hard to make the strands to braid and imposible to braid them...it was a twist not a braid, but it did give the pie a nice look so I guess it was worth the trouble!

There are two more pie crusts calling me from the refrigerator so I will likely be building another in the next day or two…