Looking for a way to make baking pumpkin pie with my two boys a little easier, I decided to try Trader Joe's frozen pie crusts. They're really frozen pie dough already rolled out - no pie tin. This is not your supermarket's pie crust! No, no, no. This is the real deal. It is not lowfat but there's no hydrogenated oil and no HFCS - they use real butter and sugar. I do wish it were made with whole wheat flour though.
The dough defrosts in an hour on the counter. All you do is unfold it, lay it in a 10" pie pan, tidy up the excess crust and crimp. Fill with prepared pumpkin pie filling (I use the Libby's recipe but substitute Trader Joe's organic pumpkin for Libby's, dark brown sugar for white sugar and add 1/4 tsp. of freshly grated nutmeg.) Here's a link to the original recipe. http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=18470
So everything went well until my four-year-old decided to taste the ground ginger. He took it pretty well although I nearly ripped the sleeve of his sweater while trying to pry it out of his mouth. He'd bitten onto the closest thing he could to relieve his scorching tongue and wouldn't let go! A cup of water later, we were on to the next problem.
So, I'm sure I'm not the only one who discovers, a bit too late, that they're brown sugar has fossilized. I decided to chop the solid, dried out mass it into smaller pieces with a chef's knife, dump it into a microwave safe bowl and cover it with a damp paper towel. I microwaved it for 30 seconds and voila, it was just like new. I couldn't believe it. It was gorgeous.
So we were able to finish preparing our pies, baked them off, and the boys shared a ramekin of leftover filling for dessert. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
The dough defrosts in an hour on the counter. All you do is unfold it, lay it in a 10" pie pan, tidy up the excess crust and crimp. Fill with prepared pumpkin pie filling (I use the Libby's recipe but substitute Trader Joe's organic pumpkin for Libby's, dark brown sugar for white sugar and add 1/4 tsp. of freshly grated nutmeg.) Here's a link to the original recipe. http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/detail.aspx?ID=18470
So everything went well until my four-year-old decided to taste the ground ginger. He took it pretty well although I nearly ripped the sleeve of his sweater while trying to pry it out of his mouth. He'd bitten onto the closest thing he could to relieve his scorching tongue and wouldn't let go! A cup of water later, we were on to the next problem.
So, I'm sure I'm not the only one who discovers, a bit too late, that they're brown sugar has fossilized. I decided to chop the solid, dried out mass it into smaller pieces with a chef's knife, dump it into a microwave safe bowl and cover it with a damp paper towel. I microwaved it for 30 seconds and voila, it was just like new. I couldn't believe it. It was gorgeous.
So we were able to finish preparing our pies, baked them off, and the boys shared a ramekin of leftover filling for dessert. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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