Pie Making

[Mark Blatter]

Any one out there do pie baking? I have long enjoyed baking bread, almost exclusively whole wheat (I grind my own wheat so I know it is truly whole wheat), and am now interested in making pies. Love to hear any stories, thoughts or recipes.

[Kelly Cleveland]

I just started getting into bread and pie making a few months ago. I have mostly been using recipes from Julia Child's The Way to Cook. The pie in that book comes out very flaky and buttery, the ratio of flour to fat is about 2:1. Last week I made a very delicious chicken pot pie using that crust recipe.
As an experienced bread baker maybe you could answer a question I have. Lately I have been trying very long rises using starters instead of instant yeast. The problem is on the second rise the loafs form a thin dry crust, which usually didn't happen when I only let the shaped loaf rise for 45 mins. Is this a problem? The crust on these loaves has been quite a bit softer than my other breads, which is fine but I wasn't sure if there was something I should be doing to prevent this.

[Jim Becker]

Although I don't bake pies often, I truly love fresh ones. I'm also very thankful that my mother taught me how to make a proper, flaky crust from scratch so many years ago, although these days, the packaged, pre-rolled crust is pretty darn good when time is a problem.

[Nick Decker]

Jm, what brand of pre-rolled crust are you using?

A good friend got me into making pies about 10 years ago, and I got to the point that I could make a damn good crust. Just takes a bit more time than I like to spend at it.

[John K Jordan]

Although I don't bake pies often, I truly love fresh ones. I'm also very thankful that my mother taught me how to make a proper, flaky crust from scratch so many years ago, although these days, the packaged, pre-rolled crust is pretty darn good when time is a problem.

Hey, your mother and mine might have something in common - mine taught me how to make a flaky crust from scratch too. Maybe it's a PA thing, although we lived on the west end of the state.

JKJ

[Shawn Pixley]

I am a cook, not a baker. However, I am thinking of taking up a bit of baking. However, I want to make the dough too. I used to help my grandmother (she is the one who taught me to cook) make tarts after the main Pie(s) were made. I have heard vodka helps to make a flakier crust.

Currently, I am studying "The Professional Chef" and focusing on sauces. I have worked through most of the meat and vegetable sections.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I'm a pie guy! Make my crusts using either shortening with food processor, or oil in mixing bowl. For food processor, look up "Four Ingredient Pie Crust." Food processor cuts in shortening and water. When dough becomes a ball, STOP. Forget putting into fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out crust between two sheets of wax paper. Place ball of dough between two sheets of wax paper, then using pie plate press into a circle before starting with roller. For oil crust look up "Nana's Pie Crust." Again roll out between two sheets of wax paper as above. For wax paper, I find that "Cuts Right" works better than store brands, and costs very little more. To keep filling from saturating crust, do an "egg white wash" on crust, and bake for five minutes to set egg white before adding filing. My favorites are : Buttermilk Coconut, Sweet Potato, and Japanese Fruit Pie. I make both lemon and chocolate meringue, chocolate cream (made with whipping cream and chocolate syrup,) pecan, lemon and chocolate chess. I don't care for pumpkin pie. For perfect meringue, look up "Never Fail Meringue," which uses corn starch and sugar along with water instead of sugar when making meringue. A KitchenAid Mixer makes the tallest meringue. I also make a "mean" banana pudding, using recipe on box of Vanilla Wafers.

[Jim Becker]

Jm, what brand of pre-rolled crust are you using?

A good friend got me into making pies about 10 years ago, and I got to the point that I could make a damn good crust. Just takes a bit more time than I like to spend at it.

Since we primarily shop at Wegman's, it's typically their house brand, but Pillsbury is quite usable. It's still not the same as my mother's technique, but as you note...sometimes time just isn't there to fork some dough.

[Bradley Gray]

I make a lot of 2 crust fruit pies. I totally agree with Bruce about the Cut-rite.

I make crust with canola oil: 2 cups four sifted with 1/2 tsp salt. stir in 1/2 cup oil with 5TBS water added in the measuring cup but not mixed. I usually have to use a rubber spatula to get all the oil/water out of the measuring cup. knead until smooth-about a minute.

Very quick and easy.

[Lee Schierer]

I'll take a blackberry pie from any one of you gents..

[Bruce Wrenn]

I'll take a blackberry pie from any one of you gents..

Let me know when you are coming this way, and I will bake you one.

[Stan Calow]

I am a pie eater, not baker. Fortunately my mother makes great pies from scratch. Her tip for apple pie is to use fresh apples (not canned filling) and to not pre-cook them, but let the apples cook in the pie. That way the apples don't turn into gluey sugary mush. For peach pie, her tip was to bake the halved peaches for awhile on a cookie sheet, to get them to dry out some, otherwise they are too wet for good pies. Now I'm hungry.

[John K Jordan]

One of my favorites is cushaw pie. (Cushaw squash, also called cushaw pumpkin) For those not familiar, cushaw pie is something akin to pumpkin but better, I think.

We grow cushaws, cook and freeze packages with enough for one pie each. They are easy to grow, hardy, not bothered by squash borers. Vines might grow 30' long and the cushaws can be large. I gave two cushaws to a friend who made 16 pies for a senior luncheon.

You can do anything with cushaw that you can do with squash, soup, for example. You can also use it anywhere you use pumpkin, i.e. cushaw cookies, cushaw bread.

JKJ

[Conrad Fiore]

LARD!
And it's better for you than butter.

[Lee Schierer]

Let me know when you are coming this way, and I will bake you one.

I might just take you up on that. Which way is that? I am retired and we do travel from time to time.