Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:57:42 GMT

I think that flour really needs to be kept far away from the empanada discs. We made the scratch dough first...and the residual flour hanging around may have caused the snap crackle pops.

Sunday will be a new piña colada filling with a new dough...and whatever I decide to make in the crockpot (pot roast or Italian beef) pie with the first scratch dough. It's been about 100 degrees here.

A few glasses of Sangria and a few hours on the treadmill after the pies!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 20:34:55 GMT

Yeah, empanada pastry is a bit stiff. I don't know if warming them would help or not.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:15:19 GMT

The empanada discs had a mind of their own so I was scared to stuff it like the other dough. This filling was really good as well...

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 12:37:34 GMT

Thank you Fried Pie Lady!!

This being the first time...we were shooting for no major disasters...and learn as much as possible. The filling was a hit! We also made some Cherry Lime Rickey pies by adding some chopped maraschino cherries to the lime base. We chilled it....so it would be easier to stuff. It was as tight as rice pudding do it went down easy....and stayed in one place.

The dough held very well and the filling held-up...but this dough is better suited for savory pies. Next time we will try a sweet dough recipe for empanadas.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 12:21:16 GMT

They look fabulous! Were you careful when you put in the filling, so it didn't get on the pastry where you pressed it together or just assume that pressing hard would squish it out? I've made lemon filling for fried pies but never thought to put key lime in there!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Dr of BBQ)

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:26:52 GMT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/F...mp;hash=item20c6dd9012

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:08:27 GMT

I'll be back with the entire story but I was pleased with the Key Lime Fried Pie...considering we never made fried pies...

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:10:41 GMT

These are Drake's Pies. They are the inspiration for the pie-vi-oli (just the shape and size).

Lighter & Flakier (crumbly) crust and just as light on the filling.

I am going to try to get a few the same size as the Drake's and make less of little ones. Double-wides.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 08:30:45 GMT

The lard is rendered! That was the easy part!

Not sure if the evaporated milk is supposed to be diluted with some percentage of water to reach the total volume of "milk" needed or reach the total volume needed with evaporated milk alone.

I think it's supposed to be 50/50 evaporated milk with added water to reach total volume in recipes...that are not doughs.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:25:13 GMT

I'm eager to see how it turns out!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:14:27 GMT

I think I will feel 100% by tomorrow. They do suck. Sorry to hear you get them too.

I am going to render the lard in the crockpot on Thursday so Friday can be Pie Day.

I will do one pass (24) of the pie-vi-oli. I will make about a dozen regular and try a few with the empanada discs to compare the results...

I have the ravioli rolling and sealing down to a science. I am not used to pie filling...but I will take my time.

I just don't know for sure what temperature to set the lard. Somewhere between 350-370. I will drop one at 360 and see if I need to adjust. I guess. I hope.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Michael Hoffman)

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:17:03 GMT

Well, I've been in Flippin, and I've never had one.

But next time ....

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:37:27 GMT

Sorry to hear about the migraine, CC. I too suffer from them and they totally suck. Let me know how your experiments turn out - I'm amazed that you'd give the ravioli press a try! But the Cherry Coke ice cream sounds perfectly yummy!

And Michael, you're right about the Woodses - he's not a frequent customer but he is an occasional customer! LOL! I think Cliff must have bought a pie at least once. It seems like *everyone* in Flippin has!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:57:45 GMT

Thank you for the invite...Fried Pie Lady! I may take you up on the offer...as long as there are no bats in Flippin! Bats scare me!

My gf was nice enough to attend the Big Apple BBQ Block Party where she investigated The Original Fried Pie Shop! They were one of the vendors. So she now thinks she has a good idea for the dough...if I get the filling right. Sounds good to me. We will give it a go when my migraine ends...and get in the mood to render a bunch of lard.

http://www.bigapplebbq.org/

For upside down fried blueberry pie!!!

Hopefully it's possible to make upside down fried blueberry pie the size of ravioli...

I give you credit for doing this on a daily basis!

As bad as I am at this...I am very hot on the trail of developing a very cool Cherry Coke ice cream that will be a beautiful pair...for the pie. Next chapter I will break out the Donvier ice cream machine and crank it up!

The crust on the Entenmann's pie is so thick and hard I had to get up high and rock the knife a few times to get through it.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Michael Hoffman)

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:47:15 GMT

It's really a very small world. I live just up U.S. 62 from you in Ohio. Steve Cole, who was a wildlife official for Arkasas Game & Fish, is a former neighbor here in Ohio where he was chief of the Ohio Division of Wildlife. By the way, I'm surprised Nina lets Forrest eat fried pies.

Cliff Shelby used to work for Ranger, and he's now has his own (with his wife) graphic design business in Flippin.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:25:47 GMT

You know Forrest? What a small world! LOL! He's certainly stopped by a couple times and enjoyed them. Since my husband works for Arkansas Game and Fish, I knew Forrest by his face (he's a hero of AGFC) and I think even his wife has been by. Cliff Shelby may have also come by but not chatted long enough for me to know his name. This gives you a good excuse to call them up and say hello!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Michael Hoffman)

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 12:46:52 GMT

Fried Pie Lady, I just noticed your location. I have a couple of old friends in Flippin. Cliff Shelby and Forrest Wood. I don't know about Forrest (his wife might keep him from them), but I'd bet Cliff would love your fried pies.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Sun, 10 Jun 2012 12:14:32 GMT

Yeah, that's pretty much the opposite of what I make! LOL! Mine are mostly filling with a light, tasty, flaky crust. Come to the Ozarks and I'll serve you up the best fried pie ever!

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 19:40:11 GMT

I'm glad I checked with you first.

Here is a version of the fried pie we are used to getting (not the fresh delightful version like you make)...

The crust is thick and dense with light filling...

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 09:50:51 GMT

Those both look luscious but you wouldn't want them in your fried pies. If you try to make fried pies using fresh apricots, it just turns to jam - that's why they use dried.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 23:42:24 GMT

I was in Cherry Market (name of the local fruit store) today and saw some nice ripe apricots...

That is the type of pie that is "allegedly" most popular at the pie place in the video. But I am thinking of making a traditional (normal) fresh ripe New Jersey Blueberry variety for the first fried pies (I can get crazy after that).. I also noticed most of the recipes for apricot pie called for dried apricots...so I took a pass for now.

Cherry Market has cherries too...

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:19:21 GMT

I will make them for my card game...this weekend. I can get some feedback from a group of ladies who grew up here and never had a fried pie...but for the commercial variety. I just have to find a balance to the sweet since I am taking out almond extract and lemon juice and replacing it with some syrup (I want to be careful about making them too juicy as well.)

I will post pics of the pies...good bad or ugly! Fingers crossed.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:58:43 GMT

Let me know how that turns out! Sounds interesting.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 00:46:38 GMT

I am thinking of experiment with a cherry pie filling drained or a maraschino base kicked up with a little Coca Cola or Dr. Pepper syrup and a little bit of spice to keep it from being so sweet. Maybe in an empanada disc. If that works without major disaster (knock on wood)...on to the cheesecake pie experiment and a homemade crust.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 00:27:58 GMT

Hmmm... Well, I'm not sure. As I said, I've made apricot cheesecake fried pies but they never sold very well, despite being really yummy. Still, I'm not proud. I sell what people want to buy. As far as just making a cheesecake fried pie, I don't see why you couldn't do just what you wrote - freeze or chill the cheesecake and wrap a fried pie crust around it. As soon as it's out of the oil and cooled enough, put it in the fridge to firm up the inevitable melting of the cheesecake. Would you like me to try this and let you know or would you rather do it?

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 12:40:23 GMT

Here's a link with the recipe and a pic of the liquid cheesecake. It's a very popular item at Momofuku Milk Bar. in NYC. It would make a great filling for cannoli and makes an outstanding dip...if all else is a no-go.

http://www.tastingtable.c...2/No_forks_allowed.htm

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (lornaschinske)

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 12:29:57 GMT

just curious (or what David calls "a dumb question)... I used to make fried mozzarella cheese sticks. I froze the cheese before breading and frying. The heat from the hot oil was enough to thaw and slightly melt the cheese with out it "blowing out" and leaving a hollow tube of crust. Different thicknesses of cheese make a difference in the thawed consistency. So my dumb question is.... Why can't you freeze the cream cheese filling, shape the dough around the frozen filling and fry? Either a "round" shape if the hot oil thaws a flat version too fast or a flat version if the round shape is still frozen.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 12:14:26 GMT

Thanks for the help Fried Pie Lady! It's so nice to have a resident pie expert here!! I can count on one hand the times in my life I made any pie (not pizza) by myself and have a digit or two left over. I smiled my way through baking classes.

I will go find the recipe for the liquid cheesecake and see what you think.

Hope you are ok after the storm.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (Fried Pie Lady)

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 11:58:15 GMT

Sorry I wasn't able to respond right away to your question, CCinNJ. A big storm knocked out our internet. Anyway, the answer to your question is a bit complex. If you try to fill a fried pie with a filling containing both eggs and milk, as in a traditional homemade pudding, the filling will "break" or curdle. It'll still taste okay but visually it's pretty nasty. The fried sugar cream pies don't have eggs. If you want to have a pudding fried pie, you might be able to use commercial pudding (something that has chemical stabilizers in it). I've tried selling apricot cream cheese fried pies and they were okay but again the consistency suffered. I sell chocolate fried pies but the recipe is butter, cocoa and powdered sugar, melted and mixed well, with milk and vanilla then mixed in. It gets rave reviews. Because of the butter, it's very thin when it's hot but it thickens as it cools.

I don't use commercial pudding. In fact, the only commercial filling I use is cherry and that only because I can't find good sour cherries. Nevertheless, I drive 120 miles every other month just to pick up the best cherry filling I can find. Since I live in a sparsely populated area and my only advertisement is word-of-mouth, every single pie that I sell has to be really good. For every person who buys a pie and thinks it's wonderful, they may tell 2 or 3 people. But every person who gets a blah or icky pie - they'll tell everyone they know. That's one of the reasons why I was stressing about the funnel cakes. If they're not perfect at an event, it's no big thing but if I try to sell them to my neighbors, they'll tell a bunch of people that they're not worth buying.

So - the secret to a fried pie crust is that you have to have a protein binder to keep it from falling apart when it's put in the hot oil. (Good bakers are chemists without a degree. LOL!) You can use buttermilk, egg-and-vinegar or evaporated milk (which is what I use). If you're baking the pies, it doesn't matter. I worked for about three months to get a fried pie dough recipe that 1) was really tasty - important because most of the volume of the pie is the dough so it better taste good, 2) would hold together from the first bite to the last so people could walk around an event eating it from a bag and 3) be light and flaky.

The pie isn't in the oil long enough to cook the filling, just the dough. So if the cheesecake filling you're thinking of needs to be cooked, you might have to make adjustments. And 6Star is right - you won't know until you give it a shot. Anyway, I hope this answers your questions. Feel free to PM me if you have any others. And, of course, I'll be checking out this thread too.

Re:Funnel cake difficulties - please give me advice! (CCinNJ)

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:25:04 GMT

Since 1893! Haven't made it anywhere close to NJ. For a $25,000 fee someone would do well with a shop like that here.

Those pies look good...

http://m.holmfamilycookbo...fb_sig_network=fw#2313

http://blogs.dallasobserv...inal_fried_pie_sho.php

Buttermilk crust. Hmmm...

I know vodka is a crust trick...but I don't know about frying. I hear sirens in the distance when I think about that.