Category Archives: double-crust pie

Week 1: Sweet pies — complete!

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6 sweet pies for sampling on Thursday noon.

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That would be, from bottom to top: Apple-Pear in Cheddar Crust Pastry (served with melted sharp cheddar on top); Mixed Berry; Very Cranberry Pear; Cider-Infused Apple; Sour Cream Blackberry; and Cranberry Apple Crumb-top pie.

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We seriously questioned whether we would be able to make it through sampling 6 pies—and that was even with half-size slices (1/16 of the whole pie, rather than 1/8). We need to strategize about this for upcoming weeks, when we’ll have 10 pies to sample (or more if people make more than one!)

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Next week: savory pies!

Wooo mixed berry pie!!

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Nikki here! I, personally, was very excited to make an ENTIRE PIE from scratch. Also, I’ve never blogged before so that’s pretty exciting as well. And now Sara Wu and I can genuinely say we can make pie-who wouldn’t want such skills? Sara and I had a few issues with the crust (there is apparently a very fine line between too little and too much water to be added…we didn’t find that line) in any case, our mixed berry pie turned out rather well I thought. I wasn’t feeling very creative so I let Sara make a nice design on the crust. I also had a lot if fun using my hands to get the job done. To celebrate our crust finally becoming crust-like, Sara and I finished off David’s mince pie  (sooooo freeeeakin goooood). Can’t wait to try everyone else’s! There was also a brief issue with the lemon zest that was going into the filling…there was a lack of zesting utensils as well as a lack of knives suitable for mincing lemon peel (thanks to Dave for his problem solving skills, we may not have made it otherwise), but we finally came through (don’t worry, unusually large chunks of lemon peel are indeed edible). The final step, the actual baking of the pie, was easy; our outer rim browned a bit more than the rest of the pie but it still looks pretty (which is all that matters anyway). If anyone is obsessed with berries and pie, this one’s for you! Hurray for week one! Over and out.

Cider-Infused Apple Pie and Sour-Cream Blackberry Pie

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Be forewarned: I have no idea why these pictures are coming in upside-down/sideways. I need to figure that one out and will edit when I do haha.

When Robbie and I were choosing our recipes for this week, the sour cream-blackberry pie sounded fantastic. I’ve never had a blackberry pie before, but anything with sour cream in it is sure to be good. As lovers of apple cider, the cider-infused apple pie sounded too good to NOT bake, so we went for it.

I’ll break down our pie-baking experience into three parts:

1)   THE PASTRY

The great thing about making two pies this week is that Robbie and I each got to attempt making a pie crust from start to finish. I was extremely intimidated by crust, but the process was actually pretty painless, save one little issue: determining how much water to add! I was paranoid about adding too much water and thereby loosing the pastry’s flakiness, but too little water turned out to be a bad thing.

When it came to rolling out my pastry, some huge cracks formed along the edges. It was pretty difficult to handle and almost fell apart while trying to transfer it from the counter to the pan. In the end, the pie crust wasn’t terrible, but I gained the following knowledge:

Crust Learning Point #1: One must not be too stingy with water while making the pastry.

Crust Learning Point #2: One must not be too stingy with flour. Too little flour on the counter before rolling out the pastry makes it nearly impossible to lift it off the counter without creating huge rips.

A photo of my lovely partner tackling large amounts of Crisco:

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2)   CREATING THE APPLE PIE

The most difficult part about the filling of the cider infused apple pie was peeling/coring/slicing TWELVE CUPS of apples by hand!

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The rest was easy. We stewed the apples for in ¾ cup of cider (a seemingly miniscule amount of cider given the number of apples) for five minutes.

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We then added a little sugar, spice, other nice things, and threw them into Robbie’s pie crust. He made a beautiful design on the top crust with an impressive amount of vent holes.

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I’m curious to see how the texture turned out. The apples got pretty mushy and we were bordering on applesauce-status. But it smelled so good while cooking; it’s got to taste good, at the very least 🙂

 

3)   CREATING THE BLACKBERRY PIE

This pie filling was very straightforward. The only finicky thing was prebaking the pie crust. The crust was hopping back and forth between the oven and the “freezer” (i.e. sitting on the open window sill), being baked with weights, without weights, with crust-browning-protector-things and without them, being stabbed by a fork, whose holes were then sealed up with egg whites, etc. It was a saga.

An hour later: BEHOLD, our prebaked pie crust:

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The rest of the pie was a breeze. We changed the recipe slightly by doubling the amount of streusel topping (you can never have too much streusel, I am told).

The sour cream mixture being poured over the blackberries:

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Our streusel-topped final product! Can’t wait to taste…I have no idea what to expect.

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Blueberry Lattice Pie

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As a project outside of class, I attempted a blueberry lattice top pie.

I ended up having to make the crust twice, both times I over-compensated for the potential danger of adding too much water by adding too little. The second crust was able to be salvaged however and turned into this lovely pie. Pictures below.

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Mixed Berry Pie

Heyo, two days late on the update, but better late than never, right?

First thought: Cleaning is a lot of work:

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Before we could get started on the cooking, we all made sure to clean out our utensils and dishware before using them. We sure wouldn’t want to be eating dust. Haha.

Anyways, my partner for the week, Nikki, and I decided to go with the mixed berry pie. This was our result at the end of the day (literally, since it was dark when we left the kitchen)

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This was the first time I’ve ever made pie from scratch. There were some parts when I think I went off the recipe and things became a little wonky.

Second thought: Read and be familiar with the recipe.

When we were forming the crust, I had not added water to the egg-lemon juice mixture, which I feel definitely affected how the crust came together because we had to add water later in the process than we were supposed to. We had added 3 tbls of water to the minimum before adding two more to get the dough to the consistency we needed it to be.

Third thought: Use more muscle!

Maybe I didn’t compress the dough enough… Nikki had compressed one half of the dough and it turned out okay. So I’ll keep this in mind next time.

Despite these blunderr, I hope our pie tastes good.

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I let Nikki do the pinching this time. Ha! Got out of getting messy there, although I do look forward to making my own crusts.

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We used a mixture of blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, strawberries and raspberries. They look like jewels here thanks to the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice.

Well, I sure look forward to eating pie tomorrow!

Apple Cider Infused Apple Pie

Apple Cider Infused Apple PieAs Derek Zoolander once said, “water is the essence of moisture, moisture is the essence of life.” Indeed, one of my first lessons as a pie maker is that water is a very important part of the process. For when I took my dough out of the refrigerator and tried to roll it, I found it tough and flaky. Having difficulty rolling out the pie crust, it was recommended that I added a little bit of water. But alas, the right amount of water before and if needed after is key. For while I added too little water initially, I added too much water in trying to correct the problem the next day and my pastry took on the consistency of cookie dough. In turn, it stuck to my hands, a big no no. We still used the pie crust as the bottom crust and hopefully it will turn out well tomorrow.

I also foolishly tried to decorate the pie but my design looks more like something Jackson Pollock would do, since I have no artistic ability whatsoever.

Fortunately, the filling is beyond awesome! It is what apple sauce wants to be. We infused our apples for five minutes in a boiling bath of apple cider. The mixture on its own was the cat’s pajamas, but mixed with cinnamon, sugar, etc. how could it not be even better? Indeed, the filling rocks. This is in no small part to having Tala as a great partner.

Hopefully it will be the filling, not the crust that shines tomorrow.

Pear mincemeat pie, in progress…

Never made a mincemeat pie before. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had mincemeat pie in probably 30 years or more, not since some childhood Christmas vaguely remembered. But as soon as I smelled the mince as it began stewing, a flood of childhood memories came back and I knew that this was precisely what Christmas was supposed to smell like!

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That’s homemade mince there: pears, dried Turkish apricots, dried currants, golden raisins, sliced almonds, orange and lemon peel, brown sugar, spices (nutmeg cloves ginger cinnamon) and brandy. No suet in this one, will try that another time.

20131225-mincemeat-pie-2…and a little autumnal decoration (yes fine it’s winter, I know. Stupid rain melted all the snow right before Christmas anyway…)

Apple butter pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving edition

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So the apple butter pumpkin pie was a big hit—love the flavor from the apple butter, and using the heavy whipping cream instead of evaporated milk gave it a fluffiness I never got from the traditional Libby’s recipe.

Decided to ditch the walnut streusel topping (I really am allergic to nuts, had it confirmed by the allergist) in favor of an improvised sunburst pattern of strips of pastry. Thought it turned out very well, though were I to do this again I would leave the extra perimeter of the bottom crust hanging over the edge while doing the strips of dough, then fold it over the edges and crimp to make a cleaner finish on the outside.

I think this is our new official family pumpkin pie recipe, however!

Peach, crème fraîche, & honey pie

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So this is basically a mashup of my end-of-season peach pie with the apricot & crème fraîche tart. It was a lovely lovely thing except that the peaches weren’t as ripe as I would’ve liked.

I had fun with the angled lattice variation (instead of perpendicular) and the scalloped crimping of the crust.

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David’s medieval-style pork, onion & apple pie

…a.k.a. pork chops and applesauce in a double coffin.

20131014-pork-onion-apple-pie-1 20131014-pork-onion-apple-pie-2So I totally just made this one up, based on reading and thinking about the medieval predilection for mixing sweet and savory. I thought of how much I love homemade applesauce with my pork chops, and decided that would be a brilliant pie—with the addition of onions, because I’ve always thought onions and apples went well together.

I checked out some very British recipes for pork pies because I wanted (again, in the medieval vein) where to cook the pork IN the pie not BEFOREHAND. The answer for that turned out to be lower temps (like 250° or 275°) for longer times (2-3 hours). Tin foil to prevent over browning of the crust. Also, a full egg (yolk and white) glaze gave the lid the characteristic golden, glossy look. Rosemary, sage, pepper and salt for spicing. I should check what else I used.

Basically, this pie was absolute heaven—so much so that I was unwilling to share it with anyone! Best lunches ever.

One change for next time: try it with a lard crust instead of the basic flaky, butter-and-shortening crust. I mean really, this is what a lard crust was born to surround.