Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Oh, My: Pie!

Grossly overdue, but here I am to talk about the pie I baked for Christmas at my parents'.

This was my first foray into a true all-butter (as in no other fats--this broad don't mess with lard or shortening!) pie crust. Really, it wasn't as terrible as I feared, and was hugely successful and sinfully flaky and delicious. Another thing I can add to the "what took me so long?" list.

I made the crust ahead of time, knowing it would keep just fine in the fridge until I was ready. This saved me a huge amount of waiting around and work time on the day I needed to make the pie. With all the other holiday baking I had going on, anything I could do to economize on my time was certainly worthwhile!

When the crust came together, it stayed rather crumbly, but that was exactly what the recipe said to expect. And so I simply balled it up, flattened it into two disks (the recipe makes enough for a double-crusted pie), and refrigerated them both for a few days until I was ready to get my pie on.

The rolling-out is the tricky part. You've got to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin as well as the rolling surface, while also making sure it rolls into what loosely resembles a circle. Oh, and also you can't handle it too much or roll it too thin--that will cause it to tear*.

Then the next anxiety-ridden step was lifting the dough and molding it in the pie plate. Thankfully, I was able to lift and place it with no tears and no cracks. Whew! I decided on the simplest crimp for the crust, but even that took a bit of work to get the hang of--it's simply pinching the dough, but you have to make sure it holds correctly (you're pinching the "extra" dough that had been trimmed and left hanging over the edge of the pie plate). Just like using a piping bag, it took a little work (and practice on scrap bits) to get it right.



By the time I was done, I was actually quite pleased with my very first pie crust! I mean...it looked like all the photos I had seen! Thankfully, the only step left for the crust was to pop it in the fridge while I worked on the filling. This crust simply bakes with the filling, so I didn't need to use pie weights to blind bake or anything. I didn't even need to prick vents in it. I like it: keep things simple!

The filling for this particular pie was apples and cranberries. Because the recipe used 3 Honeycrisps and 2 Granny Smiths, that's exactly what I used. As well as half a bag of fresh cranberries. Perhaps the best part was that once the apples had all been peeled and sliced, you mixed them with some lemon juice and spices and left them to macerate and give up quite a lot of juice! The juice was then caramelized on the stovetop and dumped over the apples and cranberries once they were placed in the pie crust. Oh my!




Caramelizing the spiced apple juice.

Almost ready for the oven!
I think next time I make this, I will use only apples (wasn't a huge fan of the tart cranberries), and I will not use all of the caramel juice. It never quite thickened up, and so when the pie was sliced into, a lot of the juice came running out. It was delicious, don't get me wrong! But I tend to like a bit more of a gelled pie--less gooey and more thick.

Now, I said earlier the pie crust recipe makes enough for a double-crusted pie. This is just a bottom-crust pie. So what topped it? Why, a delicious crumble!





The crumble was just enough coverage to keep the apples from burning during baking while getting juuuust perfectly browned itself. Thank goodness it came out so well--I'm not scared off from making future pies! Which is good because come peak farmer's market season, it's gonna be a whole new ballgame.

*Should your crust tear, you can just use some of the extra scraps to make a little patch--once it's baked, no one will ever know.







And as for that other crust left waiting in my fridge? I used up a few leftover ingredients in the pantry/fridge to make a lemon buttermilk pie with an orange cranberry jam sauce on top. MMM MMM!

 

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