Say Goodbye to Bad Pie With These Easy Solutions
Welcome back to Sunday Sus maintenance! As we said earlier , apple season has finally arrived, just in time for me to become obsessed with making pies. However, it turns out that while I’m enthusiastic, I’m not “good” at pie making, and I’ve seen a very wide range of failures over the past two months. Overcooked and cracked crust, wet bottom, burnt edges, apple soup inside the crust – I’ve been there. And it’s not as isolated as you might think. These are all typical setbacks on the road to the perfect pie, and we can learn from them. So join me and let’s get down to solving problems.
My pie is wet, soup!
This is the # 1 problem for all bakers, not just newbies. You spent all this time gathering ingredients, peeling apples and finally baking, only to react and discover an ocean of apple water. So what’s a baker to do?
- Let your pie rest, otherwise do nothing : seriously. Almost every recipe includes some kind of starch that will make your filling thicken when cooled. I know this is tempting, but give them at least an hour to cool on the counter.
- Use different apples : Soft, eaten apples do not cope well with prolonged bouts of heat. They give off too much liquid and you may end up with terrible oven cleaning. Look for hard, tart apples like Granny Smith, or baked apples like Golden Delicious and Braeburn.
- Use more or a different kind of starch : Until this week, I’ve only used my grandmother’s pie recipe. It only took 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour versus 4 pounds of apples. I went to the very master with this, and learned K-12 for 140 characters. MORE STARCH. Stella’s recipe calls for a glass of tapioca flour for a reason . Tapioca not only binds great, but will give you a cleaner-looking syrup compared to the hazy effects of flour and cornstarch.
There is a huge gap between my filling and crust!
Some people like it because it is crispy. Others, like me, see more opportunities in this. While this may seem pretty obvious, it is more difficult than you might think. I believed that the problem was solely with the apples that I ate. Not even close.
- Use the crust in butter, not shortening or lard : shortening and lard (commonly used in store crusts) are more heat-resistant than butter, which means you won’t see a decent browning of the crust until the end of cooking. time. By this time, the inside of your pie will be overcooked and flat. King Arthur Flour has a surprisingly simple buttery crust recipe. It may sound daunting, but almost half of these steps are for baking the pie itself, not for making the crust.
- Ventilate! Ventilate like the wind! : The hot steam produced by your filling will need to escape. If you’ve squeezed the edges well enough, all this steam will try to go up until it finds a weak seam. Make a few more cuts – there should be six 3-inch cuts for that – or you can follow Alton Brown ‘s path and use the bird for the pie , an elegant solution from a more civilized era.
- Cook the apples first : Serious Eats’ Kenji solves this problem by pouring boiling water (or cider) over the apples and partially cooking them before draining the water. This leads to the fact that during cooking they release less liquid, but in order to release, it will take a good dose of starch so that it does not turn into a sea of failures.
The bottom crust is soaked and glued to the pie plate!
Okay, this is the worst problem. Your pie is beautiful and golden, your filling has got the perfect gooey goodness. But when you try to serve a slice, your pie server only picks up the filling and top crust. What gives?
- Blind bake : While this has traditionally been aimed at single-dough tarts, you can also blind-bake and double-dough. Food52 has a great guide for this: after a short 12-15 minutes in the oven, a crust will form that won’t be easily penetrated by any liquid escaping from your filling. The trade-off here is that you won’t be able to chop up the crust and instead have to squeeze it with a fork. And yet, for the sake of a delicious dessert, this is a worthy sacrifice.
- Brush with egg liquid : An easier solution, since you will most likely use it for the top crust of a fruit pie anyway, brush the raw crust with egg liquid. The egg will help solidify the crust long before the filling releases the tainted liquid and leaves you with a crispy bottom. This works especially well for double crust pies, which in many cases use a hot filling before adding to the shell.
- Dip into the oven : the simplest answer is always the best. Place the baking dish on the baking sheet at the very bottom of the oven . Radiant heat will cook the tops of the cake more slowly, allowing the crust to harden evenly. While some recommend preheating a baking sheet, it is best not to do this with a Pyrex-style plate.
For something that seems so simple, pies can be incredibly complex and contain a lot of problems. Fortunately, there are people everywhere who have the same problems as you and me, and the Internet has been kind enough to bring us all together. However, these are just a few of the problems you may encounter. If all else fails, you can always call the people on the King Arthur Baker hotline (I’ve done this quite a few times, Mary is very tired of my shit). With over a century of experience in baking, they can be the first place you go for help.