My Crumbly Disaster

This is a bit embarrassing.  

Here is the last ugly slip of evidence of my first attempt at Maida’s pumpkin pie.  We ate the rest.  Yes, I said we.  My Pirate was more than happy to take a warm four inch slice of pumpkin pie with a dollop of freezing cold whipped cream and give me ‘feedback’.  Oh yes, he took one for the team; and again this morning with a cup of coffee.

My first attempt at Maida’s piecrust was a crumbly disaster because I didn’t sift the flour before I measured out my flour for the crust.  No, I sifted it after.  That resulted in approximately 2 extra spoonfuls of flour in my crust.  And that threw everything off.  I refrigerated my crust overnight to help distribute the moisture through the crust and everything.  But, when I tried to roll it out on my brand new pastry cloth.  Half the crust mixture fused itself to the rolling pin and the other half crumbled everywhere. 

With a soft cussing whimper, I tossed it back into a bowl, while My Pirate turned up the volume on his football game.  I forked in more water until it was almost a gummy mess.  I rolled it out into a crackling mess, threw it into my new pie pan, and pressed it in and patched it until it almost resembled a piecrust.  Then I proceeded to finish making my pie.  When I pulled it out of the oven, it was puffy and smelled fantastic, fringed with my ugly little crust.

I let it cool for a fifteen minutes and then I served it warm.  And we ate it greedily while the dogs begged with drool dripping around their muzzles.  And I felt happy.  

P.S.  I’ll give you the recipe when I figure it out!