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| My first strawberry rhubarb pie. |
Anyway, Andrea started us off with a flower arranging party (if this perks your interest and you live in the Victoria, BC area, check out the workshops at the floral shop Andrea co-owns with her mom, Poppies Floral Art). Next, our friend Carole introduced us to the art of making wontons. Yum!! We’ve also gotten together to decorate mirrors and dye Easter eggs. For my contribution, I promised everyone I would organize an evening of group pie baking.
That was over a year ago.
An explanation in my defense
I most recently proposed holding my pie baking soirée in June, but I don’t think anyone, least of all me, is overly serious about the idea that this will actually happen. 2 months ago, I proposed a spring date that has since come and gone. Yes, this is a recurring pattern. Now before you go passing judgment and blaming me for being a serial friend-disappointer, I want to point out, in my defense, that it has proved extremely difficult to coordinate a night that works for everyone during a week when I have time to make enough pastry dough for 10-15 pies. 10-15 pies!!
Anyway, I fear the time has come for me to rethink my skill-swap strategy. That said, in the interest of not completely dropping the friendship ball where passing on pie making skills are concerned, I thought I’d offer this post:
How to make pies
Notice I’ve titled this section, ‘how to make pies’, not ‘how to make A pie’. If you’ve resigned yourself to being a one-off pie baker, I can tell you right now, your pie will probably suck. How can I be so certain? Well, one of the innate qualities of pie pastry is it’s ability to recognize undedicated novices. Seriously.
Choosing a pastry recipe
I don't believe it really matters which pastry recipe you choose. I’ve tried a few different ones with fairly consistent levels of satisfaction – in the beginning, every recipe I tried produced somewhat miserable results and, with those false starts behind me, every recipe I’ve since come across has been pretty all right. As of late, I most often use the recipe printed on the label of whichever brand of shortening I’ve purchased. The only additional recipe-related comment I would offer is that, despite any claims you might come across, ‘no-fail’ pastry is a pipedream.
Tips for making pies:
- Keep your shortening in the freezer and when you’re ready to use it, cut it into sugar-cube sized cubes before adding it to the flour.
- When cutting the shortening into the flour, don’t worry about making sure the ingredients are well and uniformly mixed. The less you fiddle with the mixture the better. As outlined in most recipes, stop when the mixture begins to resemble crumbs and small peas. I’ve learned that stopping a little sooner- when the mixture begins to resemble flour with crumbs and peas of various sizes - works too.
- Wrap your pastry dough in plastic wrap and allow it to rest in the fridge before rolling it out. I usually let dough rest a 1/2 day or overnight.
- Wrap your rolled out pastry dough around your rolling pin and unroll it into the pie pan.
- Unless the fruit you’re using is super tart, use 1/2 to 3/4 the amount of sugar the recipe calls for.
- For fruit pies, assemble the ingredients for your pie filing and let the mixture sit for a bit (at least 15 minutes), then drain off the juice before placing it in the crust.
- Add a little additional flour, corn starch or tapioca to your pie filling. I usually put in an extra teaspoon or two if the fruit seems very juicy.
- In my experience, the easiest kind of pie to make is apple. If you’re trying to decide what type of filling to put in your first pie, go for apple. Strawberry rhubarb is pretty easy too, but don’t forget to drain the juice before placing the fruit in the crust.
With thanks always to pie baking superstar, Corrie Huys and her son Baasje who gets the first slice of every pie I make.
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