Pineapple Pie
 
 
Somewhere in my culinary developmental past I had decided that I was ‘not a pineapple person’. I suspect it was related to (1) a pineapple’s strikingly weaponized exterior (2) my aversion to fruit on pizza. In that order. That said, I was wrong. After being served multiple pineapple desserts recently, I’ve decided that pineapple is the BEST. So, I felt compelled to make it into a pie.
 
 

For these little pies I tried two different methods for making the filling. Because they were experiments, I’ve got no concrete quantities to give you, but they’re both very simple. For the first, I sliced and diced half of a fresh cored pineapple and tossed it in sugar and almond flour. For the second, I crushed the other half of the fresh pineapple and simmered the pineapple and the juice with about 1 TBSP sugar and 1 TBSP corn starch until it thickened. Both turned out well, but I prefer the first method for its simplicity. I also prefer fruit pies where the fruit is in-tact.

 
These pies were also the first to be made with my new mini-pie molds (an improvement on my previous practice of using a muffin pan). The mold comes with a cutter that allows you to cut perfectly sized pie crusts, resulting in *wait for it* uniform mini-pies. As much as I enjoy the process of forming crusts by hand, it can really slow down experimentation. The mold also allows for good side-by-side comparisons of crust recipes. With the pineapple pies, I  tried adding some lemon zest to the crust which lent it a very nice flavor that complimented the pineapple.