A Tale of Two Pies: Granny Hearts Gruyere and Inverted Pumpkin Pie

There were two pies that I recently wanted to bake. One was a recipe I had heard about and one was a recipe that I wanted to make up. The pies were:

1) Granny Hearts Gruyere: apple pie with a gruyere cheese crust

2) Inverted Pumpkin Pie: a cream pie with a whipped pumpkin topping. I have been experimenting with foams and this pie was inspired by deconstructing a pumpkin pie and putting whipped cream as the pie base with a whipped pumpkin topping. The crust was a gingersnap pecan crust. This pie was my first molecular gastronomy inspired dish-more coming soon.

Here's how they went.

Granny Hearts Gruyere

I got the recipe from this website and I couldn't figure out why her pie didn't look very fluted.

I incorporated 56g of grated gruyere cheese in the crust and 20 tbsp of butter!

The crust was actually quite easy to handle and I didn't chill it overnight as recommended.

I made two fall leaves to go on top...

and fluted the pie quite nicely.

I soon discovered why the original baker of this pie didn't have a fluted result. The cheesy crust baked and bubbled and totally lost its fluted shape. It smelled amazing and still looked great.

I used granny smith apples in this and if I did it again, I would add more sugar. It was too tart and the flavors just weren't perfect. Also this pie should probably be eaten warm when the cheese crust is fragrant. We ate it the next day and it was just ok. It was an interesting experiment though! Perhaps the filling needs one more compatible ingredient...hmm.

Inverted Pumpkin Pie

I was much more pleased with the results of this pie.

The gingersnap pecan crust recipe came from this website. It was easy to prepare.

For the whipped cream filling, I stabilized the whipped cream with some hydrated gelatin and added a touch of bourbon and vanilla. I wanted the pie to slice without whipped cream oozing everywhere. It actually worked well.

For the whipped pumpkin, I mixed canned pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves, whipped cream, sweetened condensed milk and maple syrup and heated the ingredients.

I then strained the mixture (the ISI whippers can't handle particulates) and put it in the whipper. I gassed it with two cartridges of nitrous oxide and chilled it.

It tasted great! I am getting to be pretty good at making foams- not a pro but I have learned a few things.

And here is the result. I loved it! However, this was a dessert that needed explanation- without one, you might think it was a cheesecake and be horribly disappointed!