Pie. Tasty, tasty pie.

Posted: May 23, 2010 | Author: Bakezilla | Filed under: Bakezilla | No Comments »

Who doesn’t love pie? Nobody. Pie rocks.

Pie crust is tough to make. Here’s how I like to make mine:

(This makes A LOT of crust. Enough for basically two pies. You can put any leftovers in the fridge or add more sugar and turn them into cookies).

3 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
3-4 tsp sugar (or more, if you want)
3 sticks of butter, cold and in small pieces (hells yeah)
1 cup ice cold milk (some people like water, but I love me my dairy. Nonfat is fine).

Process everything except the milk together, either in a food processor or with a pastry cutter, until it looks like a coarse meal. Slowly add the milk, until it holds together. Shape it into a disc, place in plastic wrap, refrigerate at least a couple hours.

While you’re refrigerating, make your filling. I used strawberries and pears in the one pictured, because I wanted strawberry rhubarb but I couldn’t get any rhubarb. Pears are the tofu of pie filling, they’ll absorb whatever flavors are around them. Chop up the fruit into little pieces, saute in butter and sugar, and any spices you’d like (cinnamon, nutmeg…). Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350. Take out the dough and put it on a floured surface. Roll out about half of it for one pie. Only roll it once. Don’t keep touching it up, it will make it less and less flaky. Put it in your pie tin, cut the hanging over edges with kitchen shears or a knife.

Put in your filling. To make a lattice pie, roll out more dough and cut into strips, either using kitchen shears, a knife or a pastry roller. Arrange it in a criss-crossed pattern on top of the pie, sticking it to the edges of the crust. You can also cut shapes with a cookie cutter and arrange them on your pie.

You can make a nice glaze by whisking up an egg yolk and a little heaving cream and brushing it on top. Sprinkle some sugar on. Pretty.

Bake for 75-90 minutes. Take out of the oven.

Strawberries are really juicy when baked. I drained the pie into the sink, seriously. This really helps. Peaches are similarly juicy. With these sorts of fruits, don’t entirely cover the pie with crust, so you can drain it.