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So the other day when the Fantabulous in-laws were coming up, Mr Fantabulous asked me to make a Coconut Cream Pie for dessert. Since it was just the 4 of us that day, and since I don’t eat this pie, I decided on making an 8″ pie. However when I made my pie crust I made enough for a double crust pie. Helps to pay attention when one is baking.
And okay I’ll confess… I could have froze the dough or even the crust but seriously I have not one spare inch of freezer space to be had in my kitchen freezer OR in the chest freezer (hangs her head). I swear I need to have a small army move in.
There I am, standing in my kitchen staring at this gorgeous pie dough. I didn’t want to make a pie just for me since I’m not a fan of coconut cream but I didn’t want to waste the dough either. Then something dawned on me.. it was National French Fries day. Hmmmm… I wonder.
Could I make an homage to them using the pie dough? So I dug through my drawers, found my fluted pastry wheel and got to cutting. By the time I was cutting it all up, brushing it and adding the sugar, the blind-baked crust was done and removed from the oven.
After about 10 or so minutes I removed the most precious little “Pie Fries” EVER from the oven! I mean they looked like those crinkly cut regular fries!
Now typically I use 8 gallons of ketchup on my fries or even ranch but ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww…you can’t use ketchup or ranch on sweet pastry dough! Can you? 🙂 Okay yes, I did give it a thought but opted against it.
Instead I made a raspberry coulis for ketchup. If you wanted “ranch” you could make a thinner cream cheese icing.
But check these things out! Seriously I wanted to just eat them all but I had to share them with Mama Fantabulous. So when she came up and saw them, I “squoze” the raspberry coulis onto the Pie Fry and watched her eat it. Her eyes got as big as saucers and she could barely contain the smile! She loved them! Go me! 🙂
Pie Fries
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Ingredients
- Sweet Flaky Pie Dough
- 1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
- Coarse Sanding Sugar
- Fruit Dipping sauces
Instructions
- Follow instructions for Sweet Flaky Pie Dough.
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lightly spray.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into either a square or rectangle leaving the dough about a 1/4” thick.
- Brush the dough with the egg wash.
- Sprinkle liberally with coarse sanding sugar.
- Using a fluted pastry wheel, cut 1/2”x4” strips.
- Move the strips to the parchment paper leaving 1” space between each one.
- Bake for about 10 minutes or just until golden brown.
- Serve with red berry coulis sauce.
I came across these Pie Fries when I was looking for your Grandmother’s orange ice box pie recipe (my 16-y.o. grandson loves Creamsicles, so I’m going to make it for his 17th birthday a couple weeks from now). It’s pure serendipity, and so fitting, that the recipe that reminds you of your Grandmother lead me to one that evokes some of the sweetest memories of my mother’s kitchen.
Whenever Mom baked a pie, before it went into the oven, she’d bake the random pie dough scraps with the same egg wash and sugar. It was such a treat for my brother and I, we’d hang around the kitchen until they were done. burn our fingers in our rush to get at them, and we’d bargain for the biggest piece. Usually the one who volunteered to give her back rubs won. Turning them into Fries is brilliant, and a terrific lazy alternative to baking a pie! Even easier if I use pre-made pie dough (because I’m no baker and I always ruin pie dough). Anyway, thanks for the memories, I can hardly wait to share these with my grandsons. Jedi, the 8-y.o. French fry freak, will go nuts for them. And a special thank you to Grandma, for her orange ice box pie.
I wanted to rate this 5 stars, but I couldn’t get the last one to “light up”, so I’ve left it unrated rather than give it a “mere” 4 stars.