chocolate butterflies and pistachio cream cheese pie

I watched a video from How To Cook That showing how to make chocolate butterflies, and I thought it would be perfect to decorate a pie I made for Nana.

I did the butterflies with candy melts because I didn't want to mess with tempering chocolate.  a few of them didn't work out because they were too thin and it's HOT right now, so if they didn't crack while I was trying to peel them from the wax paper they melted when I touched them, but I made them a little thicker they did just fine.

I thought I came up with the pie recipe myself, but after a quick search I found it on cooks.com and it was exactly how I thought about doing it, so I went with just the addition of cream cheese to the pudding like it was written.  I would double the cream cheese next time, use less milk as if for a pie (1 3/4 cup instead of 2 cups), and maybe use heavy cream or evaporated milk instead of regular whole milk.  it was still good as it was - just a little mild for my taste! O:)

crustless

we did some baking on vacation and made a pumpkin pie and a buttermilk pie.  when we got home to the chilly weather I was geared up to bake some more pies!  I didn't feel like making a crust so I searched for a  crustless buttermilk pie recipe that doesn't use Bisquick, as I generally don't have that on hand.  this one was super easy to put together and I didn't really need any "special" ingredients.  I have powdered buttermilk and it works just fine.

 

this pie doesn't have a buttermilk pie look to it at all, and actually looks a lot like cornbread.  the recipe said they made two pies, so I figured I need to divided the batter in two plates, but they came out kinda thin and the edges were dark, so to fix it I stacked them! O:)  they tasted alright, but it's nothing like what mom makes.

I tried a crustless no-bake pumpkin pie recipe, too.  I had the can of easy pumpkin pie mix that just needs eggs and evaporated milk, so I nixed the spices and sugar this recipe called for.

it cut beautifully and stayed together on the plate, the texture wasn't quite the same as a baked pie (more like a Jell-o pudding pie), and I did miss the crust, but it's something I'd try again if I didn't have a crust or didn't want to use the oven.

I'm gonna try this recipe next. this one looks really good, too - just gonna have to set aside one day a week through the end of the year to bake all the stuff I want to try, I guess! ;)