What would you do if I told you I was an alien from Brazil?

(FYI, I made the deadline. wahoo! eunice girl, you don’t have any issues with punctuality. keep on telling yourself that.) For our Tuesdays With Dorie entry this week, Dorie’s Thanksgiving Twofer Pie was chosen.

The morning after, we set up a mini studio shot with some of the junk in our house: my favourite S$2 rat-a-tat-tat cloth, my sister’s RM4 ‘designer’ plate & our old table mat. They have finally found meaning to life. Aww. Anyway. I do think the lighting looks great. Mm hmm. I’m surprised myself.

Being a Malaysian, and lover of Jesus, everyday is Thanksgiving for me, but I do understand that in a big island off the coast of the Atlantic, innocent turkeys are slaughtered, bags of sugar are consumed, and pumpkin pies & pecan pies’s standings are disputed.

Tired and flustered, Dorie Greenspan came up with a pie to end all tiresome but good for the soul enjoyable family feuds: A Twofer Pie. Twofer? Yes. Twofer…I’m guessing by it’s name, it means an intermarriage between the two warring families: Pumpkin & Pecan. A lot like the Capulets & Montagues. Just as Romeo & Juliet were blindly in love, so were Pumpkin & Pecan. Please don’t question this fact, I made it up.

Pretend this picture is a pie base. So, as you can see by the texture, it was very unshrinkable, this sweet tart pie base of Dorie’s. I quickly cut the freezin cold butter (i LOVE doing this!) with a steel knife and with my thunder fists and gently crumbled it and added a single yolk. By this last phrase, I am giving you hints as to my next baking endeavour. Try to guess. Not enough information? Read on for more clues.

Dorie’s Easy Peasy Unshrinkable Tart Base
(but maybe all tart bases are unshrinkable and it’s the pie bases that are notorious. who knows! this base got good reviews so here it is!)

Ingredients:
1½ cups plain flour
½ cup icing sugar (omit and add more salt if you want a savoury base. I wished I did)
¼ tsp salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Always the studious one, I skipped reading all the instructions and just crumbled the butter into the sifted flour, icing sugar & salt. I lumped in the egg yolk and tada, pressed it down into the pan with my thumbs without greasing it. Oh dear, how many rules have I broken already? The bottom flew up a little but I punched it down and pumpkin-ed it.

I de-seeded dear old Pumpkin (wait, is it unseeded? I don’t know what’s the word for de-seeding!) and put him in the nude. Yep, his dad got mad about that. He was in boiling soup! His dad does NOT support nudity. In this case, it was boiling water. And I was the hired don to do the dirty work.

I boiled it in smaller slices for 12 minutes.

After mashing it, it looked way too watery. I got nervous and anxious and giddy all at the same time. But just the thought of unrequited love spurred me on to continue. I made the strange Pecan layer that was very watery and dissolved into the Pumpkin layer immediately upon spreading. Or rather, plopping in. Strange. Is this supposed to happen? I had anxious guests outside, and my heart pounded even more. Nonetheless, I had to persevere because you see, pressure is easier to deal with than disappointed.

The nuts, yes the nuts. The nuts were much like Romeo’s friends in helping him with the whole feud. Unfortunately, I can’t remember their names because they weren’t handsome in the book I read. Moving on, the nuts helped so much I began feeling like an unstoppable baker, I mean, iron maiden, because decorating it on top already made the pie look successful. FYI. I bought those pecans (how in the world is that word pronounced? Peeken?) for RM17.50 for 250g. Insane. Anyway.

I made two pies.

Perfect Looking but Way Too Sweet Pie No. 1

No. 1 was perfect in looks and in every other way, except the sweetness level. It was way too sweet, the whole pecan and pumpkin layer and the sweet tart base. It was diabetes infested, to be frank.

Pie No. 2; not so handsome, but a better taste.

No. 2 was not as attractive, and was only eaten the next day after much cajoling. It turned out to be the saviour. A thinner layer of pumpkin & pecan as well as different nuts on top made it deeelightful to eat. Because I felt sorry for the unappealing pie, I put in macadamia nuts (yum!), pecans and almonds. This made it all the better. Reminds me of some people I’ve met. Don’t judge a pie by it’s looks, gentleladies & wonderful guys.

This pie used 3 eggs and 3 egg yolks in total. Now can you guess what I’m making tonight? :) (another clue: it’s giving me a headache!)

Do check out the other bakerettes and bakers on Tuesdays with Dorie. I am :)