It Pie Time

Two weeks ago I received an email from my friend Paige that read simple "You jealous of my amazing pie making skillz?  I just made Batman and Robin Pies."  She include pictures of two Raspberry pies, One had the bat symbol cut in the top, the other had the stylized R Robin logo from the 90's Tim Drake Robin comics.  The true is I'm very jealous.  It's no secret that I love pie.  And I make a mean pumpkin pie.  In fact I get several requests for me to make one for our yearly office Christmas party.

My secret shame is that I have never made a fruit filled pie, nor have I ever made my own crust.  After talking pie with Paige (Talking Pi with Paige is my Math-Rock, Led Zeppelin cover band), I resolve to rectify this culinary oversight.

The next weekend I'm in downtown Phoenixville for the Blobfest street fair.  After checking out the amazing costumes, the cool rockabilly band and fun booths, I head down to the farmers market that sets up under the gay street bridge every Saturday.  There I'm able to pick up some tasty honey sticks, a bag of maple-glazed walnuts and most importantly some fresh blueberries.

Armed with some truly outstanding blueberries I set out to make pie for the first time.  I found some good recipes for pie and pie crust, both by Alton Brown.  As is my way, I play with the recipes a bit and blend the two together.  Here are the links to the originals.

Pie Crust

Pie Filling

Here what you need:

• Food processor
• Masher
• A few mixing bowls
• Zesting grater
• Rolling pin
• Spritz or misting squirt bottle
• Pie Pan
• Plastic Wrap
• Plastic freezer bags
• Whisk
• Aluminum foil

Here how to make the pie crust:

Ingredients:

• 12 tablespoons of butter
• 4 tablespoons of lard
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• ½ cup of ice water in the Spritz bottle

• Freeze the Lard and Butter
• Add the Flour and Salt in food processor and pulse 4 or 5 times
• Chop the Butter into small chunks
• Add to the food processor and pulse 6 to 8 times till mixture is mealy
• Chop the Lard into small chunks
• Add to the food processor and pulse 6 to 8 times
• Spritz down the mixture and pulse 5 times
• Repeat the spritz and pulse step till the mixture holds together
• Pour mixture in a Freezer bag and mush together into a ball.
• Place in Fridge for 30 min or so

Here how to make the filling:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of blueberries
• ½ cup of sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 5 tablespoons of tapioca flour (or granulated tapioca as that is what I found in the store)
• 1 orange:
•             1 tablespoon of fresh squeezed OJ
•             1 teaspoon of orange zest

• Wash the berries
• Put half the berries into a small mixing bowl and mash the heck out of them
• In a medium bowl whisk together the sugar, salt and flour
• Stir in the OJ, Zest and mash
• Let it sit in the fridge for 15 min
• Fold in the rest of the berries
• Line a pie pan with the foil and then pout in the mixture then cover with foil
• Freeze the pan for 6 to 8 hours
• Once it frozen you can wrap it up in plastic and it should keep for 3 months or you can use it right way.

How to bake the pie:

Preheat the oven to 325

• Take the pie dough out of the fridge
• Coat a surface with flour to keep the dough from sticking
• I like to cover the dough with some plastic wrap to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin, but coating it with flour works for other people
• Roll the dough till it’s thin and can cover the bottom of the pan 1 and half times
• Cover the pie pan with the dough; make sure it covers the lip and cut or pull of excess
• Add the frozen filling and curl the dough in and around the top of the filling
• Roll out the remaining dough into a sheet and use a knife to cut thin strips
• Lay the strips onto the pie to form a checkerboard pattern
• Pop the pie into the oven for 1 hour and 15 min
• If you are brave you can place the pie under the broiler for a minute to give it a golden brown look, but be careful, its easy to burn your pie.

The nice thing about the filling is that you freeze it and can use it up to 3 months after you make it.  I made mine right after buying the blueberries, but didn't bake the pie for another week.

The biggest challenges I found were that I don't own a food processor and I had never bought lard.  The first time I went to store I couldn't even find it.  It was late and I wasn't feeling particularly social so I just left.  I did some research to see what I could use as a lard substitute and found that actually lard is not that bad for you.  From what I've gather it's better for you than vegetable shorting and most than likely better than butter.  My research was a little on the cursory side.  Eventually, I found lard in the butter section and baked the pie this past Sunday morning.

I did have a little bit of a goof and I attempted to brown the top of the pie with the broiler.  I left it in about 45 sec too long and brought the top to the edge of burning.

That afternoon I had some friends over to play some Arkham Horror.  To celebrate our defeating the attempts to awaken a great old one we indulged in some pie for lunch.  The pie was a big hit.  The burnt sections didn't even taste burnt and the filling did justice to the quality of blueberries I used.  I was especially proud of how the crust came out.  It was flaky and delicious.  Between the four of us we made short work of the pie.

I want to thank Paige for inspiring my pie-making endeavor. 

It was damn good pie.

T.