Making a Pie, part 2

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Now that I've told you how I was able to overcome extraordinary odds and make an actual pie crust (and in less than three hours, no less!) I thought I'd share the recipe that I use.  My mother uses a recipe called No Fail Pie Crust (an absurd name for a recipe that failed so unfailingly for me). Hers calls for egg and vinegar, but I like the fact that this one is so simple.  Both the pie crust and pie recipe are from the Searchlight cookbook, first published in 1931 and still easy to find at a reasonable price (See Amazon link on the sidebar.)

Plain Pastry
1 1/2 c. flour (I use whole wheat--Prairie Gold--with beautiful results)
1/2 c. lard or butter
1/4 c. cold water
1/2 t. salt

Sift flour, measure, and sift with salt.  Cut in lard or butter until mixture is coarse and granular.  Work water in lightly with a spatula until little balls of dough just hang together in one large ball.  [Then chill the dough, of course.] This makes one two-crust pie.

With my new-found pie-making knowledge, I've been having fun trying new recipes.  Old cookbooks are just packed with pie recipes!  I'll be working my way through them for the rest of my life.

It just so happened that I had some homemade slightly overdone (extra thick) blackberry jam in my pantry but it would be great with other kinds of jams, too.  It's the sour cream that makes this pie so rich and creamy.

Blackberry Jam Pie

3 eggs

1 c. sour cream

1 T. melted butter

1 c. blackberry jam

1/2 c. sugar

1 T. cornstarch

3 T. sugar (I used white sugar to keep the meringue pretty)

few grains salt

Beat egg yolks until thick.  Add cream, butter, and jam.  Combine 1/2 c. sugar, salt and cornstarch.  Add to first mixture.  Mix thoroughly.  Pour into pastry-lined pie pan.  Bake in hot oven (425 degrees) about 25 minutes.  Cover with meringue made of egg whites and 3 T. sugar.  Brown in slow oven (325 degrees) 20 minutes.

Gorgeous color, huh?

This post has been linked to Old Fashioned Friday.

Making a Pie, part 1

Pie-making is not one of my natural talents.  For many years, a wedding cake with three tiers and fountains was less daunting than a pie.

My first foray into pie making occurred when I was about 14 and wanted to try something new.  It was so easy I couldn't understand why people spent years mastering them.  It was only after trying to eat my rhubarb-filled wonder that I discovered that the recipe had I doubled for the two pies was already for two pies.  Talk about your sturdy crust.

Later I found pie making truly a tricky matter.  It was further disheartening to watch my grandma casually toss some flour and lard in a bowl and effortlessly make perfect pies.  And she did it without whining about the sticky dough that wouldn't roll without tearing, threatening the household that it better appreciate this pie or blaming the humidity for another crust disaster.

I eventually married someone who loves pie--in other words, a typical man.  (Why do they all like pie so much?)  I earned double good-wife points a few times a year when I set aside all my work and projects for a day to make something resembling a pie.

My standard procedure included using lots and lots of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the parchment paper where I rolled the dough.  (The tough crust that resulted was the least of my problems.)  I would then freeze the rolled-out dough so that I could easily peel it off the paper and lay it frozen across the top of the pie pan.  After it thawed, I would pat it down into the pan.  All that freezing and thawing took so long that I scoured my cookbooks for one-crust pies.  Captain Awesome eventually noticed that he rarely got an apple, peach, or rhubarb or other two-crust pie.

One day I shared my woes with my mother-in-law (a pie whiz) and she suggested that I chill my dough overnight.  About the same time, I found a piece of canvas meant for rolling pie dough, along with a "sock" to put over the rolling pin.  Chilling the dough has made all the difference in the world and if you can locate the baker's canvas, I highly recommend it.  It makes it easy to manuever the dough into the pan and is washable (reusable!).

See?!  A pie crust that's not a leaky, patchwork, pressed-into-the-pan, sad excuse of a crust.

Next post, my crust recipe and a finished pie....