My First Pie
So, I baked a pie. Never baked a pie before, but Nichole said it was easy, and I figured I was up for it.
It… didn’t go that well.
The crust was the first problem. I made a pretty standard butter crust and rolled out the bottom crust without too much difficulty. The top crust, however, was more of a problem. It stuck the counter. Kind of a lot. And tore. And… I might have thrown what could charitably be called a hissy fit, not to mention the dough across the kitchen.
The next morning, considerably calmer, I made another batch and let it sit in the fridge all day. This one rolled out much better, which led to the next problem: filling. I’d decided on a berry pie as being nicely summery, so the previous evening I’d tossed the contents of a bag of frozen mixed berries in a bowl with some sugar and lime zest. The twenty-four hours of maceration produced quite a bit of juice and shrunk the fruit, so when I filled the bottom crust, there was plenty of room to spare. Casting desperately around the kitchen for something else to put in the pie, I settled on a handful of fresh blueberries and half a bag of frozen mango chunks. Yeah.
It still wasn’t enough filling, so the top crust fell down a bit. It ended up rather lumpy. Still, tasted OK. The bottom crust more or less dissolved with all the juicy filling, but the top crust was buttery, flaky, and pretty tasty. The filling was an unusual combination of fruits, but I’ve tasted worse. I might make another pie some day.
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Check out Swedish Apple Pie. There’s no real pie crust, so to speak, so you won’t have issues with the crust dissolving. I’ve always had to cook the pie for longer than it says below, but it’s a good barometer.
Pre-heat oven to 350.
Cut up and peel 4-6 pie apples into a pie plate.
Mix a fist of sugar and a fist of cinnamon and sprinkle onto apples in pie plate.
(Throw the rest of the fist into the dough you’re about to make).
Mix 1 cup flour with 1 cup sugar.
Mix sugar and flour with 1.5 sticks of butter (or margarine) and 1 egg.
Spread mixture evenly on top of apples.
Cook until golden brown (45-55 minutes).
Eat pie.
Eat leftover pie for breakfast.
it looks gorgeous though!
i have made a few apple pies in my day - the top crust is always the hardest - i too have thrown hissy fits about the top crust, but unlike you, i don’t have 12 hours of patience so I, ashamedly, go with it. c’est la vie. it always tastes good… (You have reminded me that one time I had so many apples, that I made 3 pies. Cooked one and threw the other 2 in the freezer. When we felt in the mood, we defrosted one of the frozen pies, cooked it, and it was darn good and fresh-seeming - shocking!)
I have had great experiences with apple pies. For a filling, sometimes I’ll caramelize some sugar, thin the caramel with bourbon, and soak dried cherries in that. I drizzle all that over the apples. Always overfill the pie, and brush the top crust with egg wash for a nice sealed-in butteriness.
Dear god. Caramel, bourbon, dried cherries? How could that not be delicious?
Overfilling is where this pie particularly failed, so next time I bake one I’ll be sure I have enough fruit on hand. Now I can’t wait for apple season.
Mmmm. Bourbon pie.
this reminds me that i saw in article in the nytimes recently for fried peach pies that sounded awesome: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F70F16FB35590C728CDDA10894DF404482
i think you might need an nytimes account to access that link.
Oh, that sounds and looks divine. I had a dough-throwing experience … tried my darnedest to make gingerbread cookies while 9 mos. pregnant. Couldn’t get the damn dough to work … there were many tears and a throwing of the dough wad … and then I ate the dough after it flew. Delicious!