Pie Making Gluten-Free Style

This year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, me, my mom, and my sister all got together to make Thanksgiving day pies.  We thought it would be a fun way to make memories, spend time together, and be able to make a delicious treat that all would enjoy!

My mom is an awesome pie maker and growing up I always remember having yummy pies to eat around the holidays.  Some people just have a knack for baking, my mom is one of those people.  This really came in handy as we attempted to do something none of us had done before… make gluten-free pies for Jason!  Since the flour used for gluten-free baking is so different then normal baking flour it really helped to have my mom’s experience during our first attempt.  And just to keep things really interesting, we decided to try out two different flour mixes to see which one we liked best.

The first crust we made was from a All Purpose Gluten Free Baking Flour by Bob’s Red Mill.  This flour is primarily made from different types of beans and actually had a very nutty taste.  We decided the first crust was going to be for our pumpkin pies and that we were going to use the flour cup-for-cup and make a family recipe.  After all, that’s what the package says you can do!

Let’s just say the rolling out of the dough and placing into the pie pan looked more like my mom and I trying to put together a puzzle.  They just fell apart and were impossible to get off the counter so we got smart and just ended up “hand rolling” the dough in the pan.

The one on the left was our first attempt and you can see how we just tried to piece it all together.     The one on the right was hand rolled directly into the pan.  They looked a bit scary but after the baking process I think they looked great!

After all that hard work we HAD to do a taste test to see if the crust tasted as good as it looked.  To our surprise it tasted pretty great!

Then it was on to making a Lemon Meringue pie using a completely different flour.  This one I was really excited about because we were going to be using a gluten-free bread mix by Pamela’s which is a brand of flour we use a lot of for baking.  Not only that, we were also going to follow the pie crust recipe that was on the package so my hopes were high.  I am happy to report that the Pamela’s mix turned out awesome.  I liked it a lot better then the Bob’s Red Mill mostly because it is a sweeter flour.  It has evaporated cane sugar, molasses, and honey… then add a rich zesty filling and a sweet top….  there is no wonder why I liked it!

I am completely satisfied with our first attempt but there are a few things I would change for my next go around.  First, the pie dishes I had were way to deep.  I like a lighter more fluffy type of pie and filling, so I would have a much smaller dish.  Second, I would use less of the crust to make it thinner and I would just stick to the Pamela’s bread mix.  It was easy, faster, and much cheaper (if you can call $9 for about 3.5 cups of flour cheap)!  Also, the Meringue was really thick so I would probably thicken it with just corn starch vs. the flour (since the flour is so dense and made it heavy).

What I wouldn’t change next time is the company, the good memories with my mom, and Jason’s reaction when he saw the pies sitting on the counter when he got home…all of that was just perfect.