April 2008
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This Pie Is Right

Pumpkin Pie O’ Mine

I finally made that pie I dreamed of. And it was better in real life.

It’s the pan. I know it’s the pan. I’ve baked dozens and dozens of pies and this is the first time I have ever inspected the crust and the word “perfect” left my lips in a whisper. It was evenly golden brown from the crusty fluted edge to the center of the bottom.

No dark spots, and no vaguely overbaked too-dark aftertaste. Also, no soggy part there in the middle because you took it out early worried that the edge would char.

And I did not shield it while it was in the oven — neither with one of those aluminum shields nor with foil. I didn’t need to because the stoneware pan baked the most fantastically even crust. I’m not going back. Not ever.

The photo above is of the first pumpkin pie in the Pampered Chef Stoneware Deep Dish Pie Plate in Cranberry. I made a second one this past Sunday when I had out-of-town guests stop over for dinner. It was as perfect as the first. Yes, I know that may be difficult to believe, but you’ll either have to trust me or get a hold of one of these pans and test it yourself. (If you need a PC consultant, I can refer you to mine. Just drop me a line.)

There has got to be a lot more pie now. Not only because I loved the fantastic results from the first two pumpkin pies. But also because baking pies this past week reminded me how easy it is to make something that improves my life by leaps and bounds.

I know there are people who fear pie baking because the crust makes them nervous. I think pie baking has a lot to do with confidence. And if you’re not confident from the start when you’ve made your first few pies, you need to keep baking more pies until you earn that confidence. It will come. And in the end you too will get fantastic results.

I’m fortunate to have learned pie baking at the elbow of two fine ladies – my maternal grandmother and my step-mother – and neither of them had any pie fear. Both made the crust by hand by cutting vegetable shortening into flour with a pastry blender or with a fork. Both got delicious results.

I’ve done it that way and I’m nostalgic about the method because it’s what I first learned. But, in my adulthood, I’ve been fortunate to receive a KitchenAid stand mixer as a gift and I recently have used it to blend the fat into the flour. It is very fast and thorough, which is especially good when you’ve got more on your to-do list today than “bake pie.”

My current pie pastry recipe contains all butter (plus flour, salt and water) and comes from Rosie’s Bakery All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No-Holds-Barred Baking Book by Judy Rosenberg (see the recipe on page 175 for Basic Pie Crust 1). I have also enjoyed using a crust based on vegetable oil, which I learned in my home economics class in the seventh grade. I think that there are lots of good crusts out there and I don’t think any are inherently better than others since taste and preferences are very personal.

But I tend to go back to the all-butter crust time and again because (1) it’s butter, and butter tastes better to me and (2) I have such excellent results rolling out this crust. I place the refrigerated disk of dough on waxed paper or plastic wrap, and I roll it out with my rolling pin using no additional flour. As long as it stays reasonably cold, it does not stick to the pin. If you need to work very slowly, just slide it gently back into the fridge when it starts to stick. Slide your hand under the waxed paper or plastic wrap and the gently turn it dough-side-down into the pie plate. Then gently peel away the paper or plastic and guide the dough to fill all corners of the plate. Fancy up the crust with your favorite design — I prefer crimping by hand.

For the pumpkin filling, I did a search through my recent favorite cookbooks. I did not want to trudge up to the store just to buy the evaporated milk that is an ingredient in many pumpkin pie recipes. Instead, I found a lovely alternative in From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens by Phyllis Pellman Good and Rachel Thomas Pellman.

Their recipe on page 212 contains the usual ingredients with the addition of one tablespoon flour (as a thickener, I think), one tablespoon molasses or King Syrup and one tablespoon of browned butter. Where they called for one half cup each of milk and cream, I substituted one cup of whole milk. I spiced it with ground ginger and cinnamon and left out the nutmeg because I’m running low and needed it for my secret ingredient in mashed potatoes.

This is a fantastic pumpkin custard — so delicious, soft and smooth. Once again, I’m not going back to the old way with the canned milk. I like this better. It is simpler because I often have milk in the fridge but have to buy evaporated milk just for pumpkin pie. What for? No reason, it turns out. It seems like lots of interesting things happen when I make do instead of buying ingredients just because they’re listed in a recipe.

I had been putting off pie baking for months, as I mentioned in my post about Pie Dreams, and as I slid the first pumpkin pie into the oven, I thought, shame on me! This was not some sort of difficult project to dread and delay. It was easy and fun. But I let myself get too busy and forget.

It’s amazing how finally doing something you’ve had on your mind opens the world up to you. I need to start baking pie all the time; weekly, at least, because I need to solidify my relationship with it. So I’m adding that to the cooking plan. My last pie was this past Sunday, so I need to get another one in by the end of the weekend. I’m going to go for the other dream pie: Amish-style oatmeal pie. Then we’ll see where the wind takes me.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 23:19 and is filed under change your mind, energy, attitudes, nostalgia, cooking, love, pampered chef, celebration, pie, dreams & dreaming, books, enthusiasms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “This Pie Is Right”

henitsirk says:
Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 10:53
That is a gorgeous pie. I’ve always had my eye on some Le Creuset bakeware, plus a stand mixer, for all that baking I don’t currently do! I have been making the “artisan bread in 5 minutes” recipe lately, which has been great, and I make the Joy of Cooking blitztorte cake because my kids can help with it, but that’s about it.

I like how you describe it as the “fear” of crust making. I’m a bit that way, but it makes sense that you just have to practice and get over it. I did that with biscuits, finally. Last year I watched my Southern step-grandmother make Crisco biscuits, without even using a fork. She had total confidence.
Aunt Judd says:
Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 14:25
Anything that looks that beautiful has to be delicious, too. That’s not just pie, it’s a work of art. It’s, well, edible art.

I admit I’ve never had much success with crust and I don’t deal well with failure. I also feel terribly guilty about wasting food or ingredients (thanks, Mom and Dad), so I gave up on pie making a long time ago. I like pie, but I guess I don’t love it enough to get over my fear of crust. For me the answer is simple: you bring the pie and I’ll bring the cheesecake.
Julie Cancio Harper says:
Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 22:39
Thanks to both of you for the pie appreciation. =D

henitsirk: Now I have not yet explored biscuits AT ALL, and I really enjoy them too. My step-mom makes really great biscuits and she’s so fast at it. Hmmm…maybe I need a baking exploration list. For some reason it never occurs to me to make biscuits.

I think of cornbread all the time — to the point that Eric has asked me to give it a rest for a while. He’s a very appreciative eater of lots of things he never liked before he knew me, including cornbread, but I think I have to pay attention when he just can’t take it anymore.

I haven’t baked yeasted bread in a long while and have thought about it a little recently. Maybe I should try the 5 minutes a day method since you’ve had good results.

And I’ve never eaten a blitztorte cake, but I’ve never met a cake I didn’t like . . .

AJ: We have a deal. I will be the pie maven in the family and you shall be the cheesecake queen!

And, I’m wondering if your perfectionism might hold you back with the pie. Were any of your attempts actually INEDIBLE, or were they just not what you dreamed of? In the beginning, I made many tasty pies with cosmetically defective crusts. But there was never a slice that went into the trash . . .

Then again, as a baker, Nunny was a tough act to follow. She baked excellent pies, and cheesecakes, and everything. *sigh* A rich baking legacy to live up to!
Aunt Judd says:
Friday, April 18, 2008 at 05:55
Dough and I don’t have a good relationship. Dough with yeast likes me even less (unless it’s in the bread machine). I’ve always found pie dough difficult to work with, my frustration level peaks, and I lose my patience. My previous pie attempts weren’t inedible, but they were far from great. The filling turned out to be tasty, but I preferred to eat around the crust. (It was rather tasteless and had a weird texture.) The amount of time I invested struggling with the crust should have yielded a decent pie at the very least. Since my free time is so limited, I’d rather spend it making something that I KNOW will be good. Maybe when I retire, I’ll work on perfecting pie crust.
henitsirk says:
Monday, April 21, 2008 at 18:37
Totally off-topic:

Julie, you may have noticed that I am using many little ® symbols on my blog lately. It’s all your fault, you pesky permissions editor!

Actually it’s something I’ve tried to be more aware about lately, like actually crediting photos I use (Creative Commons, of course!). If I think about my blog as a published written work, then I should obey trademark laws just like anyone else, right? Even if my blog is noncommercial, right?
Julie Cancio Harper says:
Monday, April 21, 2008 at 23:24
henitsirk, I did notice! Due to our plumbing problems I’ve not had as much time to comment but I’m still reading your blog and I did notice. It gave me a little smile.

I say, why not be thorough and put up the trademark symbol? Doesn’t cost you extra, and it acknowledges the rights of the trademark owner. Just a few clicks and you’ve got the symbol up and rockin’!

For me, the most important reason to do things right on my blog is that there are a lot of people roaming the Internet who think that everything is (or should be) free. I like to reinforce good and accurate information as much as possible, so I gave a little trademark symbol to Mexicorn® when I mentioned it in the Chinese Pie post.

If I had a trademark, I would want it to be acknowledged — those things are expensive to set up! I write, so I certainly want my copyrighted material to be protected. So I stand for intellectual property rights and I dig it when others do the same.

So far all my blog photos have been original, but there are alternatives. Free photos under Creative Commons are definitely an option. There are also some public domain photos from government agencies that I’ve found useful. The USDA website has an archive of food photos in the public domain that can be helpful. And the Library of Congress has a pretty extensive database — some of their photos are public domain and some are copyright protected, so the full record of each should be examined before the photos are reused.
vegetable oil shortening recipe says:
Friday, April 25, 2008 at 13:00
[…] this is the first time I have ever inspected the crust and the word ???perfect??? left my lips in ahttp://learningtoeat.com/2008/04/16/this-pie-is-right/From my kitchen to yours The Olathe NewsBefore the temperatures rise and we don??t feel like baking, […]

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7 Responses to “This Pie Is Right”

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