Sunday, August 17, 2008

Practice Makes Perfect

Well, like anything, practicing pie crusts more than once a year wil definitely lead to better quality. I baked two pies today with dough I made 3 days ago. I really think that the long chill had everything to do with the tender, flaky crust. I did, however, make it with a higher ratio of whole wheat pastry flour, and this seemed to take away slightly from the flakiness. I am not going to dote on that, though.

For these pies I chose CT grown peaches and blueberries. This year has been great to blueberries, which are still going strong into August. The peaches have started out spectacularly, and are incredibly juicy. That being said, I have learned a thing or two about juiciness. If you use the old fashioned pie method (fresh raw fruit, sugar, starch, butter) mix the fruit with the sugar and starch just before filling the pie. If you don't want a juicy pie, drain off some of the juice before mixing the sugar and starch. As an alternative, use the cooked fruit method and thicken the juice before filling the pie. This way you can use as much of the juice as you would like.

The reason that I suggest these two methods is because when I made the apple pie from the last entry I mixed the sugar and starch with the apples and let them sit for about 30 minutes. So much water was leached out (and therefore there was very little starch that stayed with the apples) that the pie was a little dry.

If you want to make these pies, here is the formula:

-bottom and top crust
-2 lbs. of fruit per pie
-6 oz. sugar
-0.5 oz. corn starch (2 tbsp.)
-1/8 tsp. salt
-1 oz. butter (2 tbsp.)

Mix the fruit, sugar, starch, and salt. Fill the pie, put on the top crust and close pie. Bake at 400 for 30 mintues, then 350 for 20-30 minutes. Brush with egg wash and dust with sugar.

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