I’ve decided that bean pie would be one of the things that I would demo at the faux trade show we are doing next week for my sales and marketing class, so I needed to get on the recipe, pronto. I had tried a few recipes in the past, but hadn’t settled on anything I especially liked yet. So, I played around with the recipe again last week, but it still wasn’t right. Also, I wanted to develop a savory bean pie recipe, so I made one up on the fly and tried that out on unsuspecting friends. The results were mediocre, at best.  I consulted my baking chef. We brainstormed. It was decided I would bring a bean pie in next class and have my classmates sample it. I tinkered with the recipe again last night, baked it up, and waited to see what would happen.

They liked it!

This is exciting to me.

I like it when people like bean pie.

So, it looks like I’ve got the  regular recipe nailed down. The sweetness is right, the texture is right, and, even more pleasing to me, the crust is right. I haven’t liked any of the crusts I have tried and I have secretly suspected that the answer is a vegetable oil crust, but no one talks about vegetable oil crusts so I just kept pushing the idea aside and continued working with butter and shortening combinations. But, last week I went back to the vegetable oil crust idea, tinkered with it, screwed up a good handful of batches, and then hit on one that I think I like. It even has some whole wheat flour in it, which doubles my pleasure.

All in all, a good night. Now, back to the drawing board for the savory bean pie.