Ever since it was announced that the third week of “Life of Pie” would be decoration, I was dreading the day it would come. While I was excited about the first two weeks, where we had to make a sweet and then a savory pie, in both instances I did not have to show craftsmanship of any sort. The reason that I was nervous about decoration is that I am artistically challenged. So much so, that when I was in an art class my freshman year in high school, my teacher made me draw circles while the other students drew self-portraits. While my Mom and two sisters are terrific artists, due to my terrible fine motor skills my best bet for something artistic is something abstract in the vein of Jackson Pollack. In fact, my handwriting has gotten worse since I was a little kid, not the other way around!
As a Pie maker whose father once proclaimed that his chicken scratch handwriting looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics, I thought to myself, “what could I bake this week that looks pretty, but is relatively easy to make/not screw up”? Enter the lattice topped pie. For whiling the weaving is intricate, to quote the Geico commercials, “it is so easy a caveman could do it.” With that in mind, I was set on my decorative style for this week.
But what of the pie itself? Last week I took English eloquence and bastardized it with American excess and opulence when I put a twist on the English pork pie. After eating all of those savory pies, not to mention the time it takes to actually make them, I figured I would go for something sweet and quicker to make. Although I am a major blackberry fan, for some reason, the idea for its berry cousin, blueberry, popped into my head. As George Clooney said in Wes Anderson’s terrific The Fantastic Mr. Fox when voicing the titular character, “Beagles love blueberries” and so do people as well! Unlike my beloved tart blackberry, I figured this would be a pie that is more user friendly, that everyone will like (hopefully). I got my recipe from: http://www.food.com/recipe/blueberry-pie-2452 which you can check out if you want to replicate it.
Unfortunately though, it is not blueberry season. Luckily I got Wymans terrific fresh then frozen blueberries which looked and tasted great. Notwithstanding the use of Wymans blueberries, I liked this recipe in particular in that in calls for a cup of sugar. While that would seem to be more than usual, I thought it was useful for the winter, since it compensates for the lack of sweetness that would normally accompany these berries during blueberry season. After washing the berries and adding lemon juice, I proceeded to create the sugar/flour/cinnamon mixture which you can see in the recipe. Then I mixed the sugar mixture and the blueberries together until it reached an almost stew consistency. It looked and tasted great.
Then, I proceeded to put my filling in the pie tin that I had pressed my dough into. Afterwards I dotted the top of the pie with butter as the recipe called for. Between all of the sugar and the butter, I feel like I made a pie from one of Paula Deen’s shows! But hopefully all of that means the pie will turn out well.
Then I proceeded to start my lattice crust. I have included a link: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_a_lattice_top_for_a_pie_crust/ that easily explains the process in depth. All in all, I got to say that while I was nervous of my ability to make a pie beautiful, even I could make a lattice, as evidenced by these pictures:
The pie looked and smelled great when it came out of the oven. The recipe was very easy and straightforward. The only difficulty I found was that it required a greater cooking time to get the center a golden brown. Even then, it was much lighter than the crust.
