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.

American as Apple Pie?

Apple pie is the quentessential American dessert - that is, apple pie with lots of cinnamon. I prefer my pie with no cinnamon. Yes, I said it...no cinnamon. Take your recipe card and cross it off! I made the pie with nutmeg and lemon zest, which both let the flavor of the apples sing without the over-powering spice of cinnamon.

I really want to focus on the crust, though, because this is my first scratch crust that has turned out tender and flaky. First off, I use all butter (shortening is for short-cutters). If you treat butter right it can be just as good to you. The key, I think, is the chilling and adding all of the liquid at once so the dough is not over mixed. First I cut the butter in small cubes, mix it with the flour, and put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes. After that, I pulse the butter and flour mixture in the food processor to make larger-than-pea size chunks. Then I add all of the cold water (also chilled in the freezer in a cocktail shaker) with the salt and sugar at once. I pulse it for a bit longer, say 30 seconds to 1 minute, and turn the dough into a bowl. I press it into a ball and wrap it in plastic. Finally, I chill it for 20-30 minutes in the freezer. I will venture to say that chilling the dough in between handling served it well, and I would suggest doing this often.

The crust rolled incredibly easily on a pastry cloth (I found this great pastry cloth at Bed Bath and Beyond, but I forgot the name of the company. It is 100% natural and made by a company in Texas...that is all I remember).

As for the filling, I think the most important lesson I learned was not to toss the fruit with the sugar until you are ready to fill the pie. Most of the juice was leached out of the apples and the corn starch and sugar stayed behind with the juice I as loaded the fruit into the pie. It was still good - don't get me wrong - there was simply no thick, appley, syrupy goo in the pie. Oh well, I guess I will get it right next time.

Until then, I'll be baking...