Initially, I started out with a rolled, refrigerated pie crust, which I had intended to use in my MayDay lemon meringue pie. The box had info about letting the dough warm up a few minutes to room temperature before unrolling it onto a pie pan. Or could microwave for a few seconds.
My brain misfired and had my fingers microwave the dough for defrost on a low setting. Unfortunately, the defrost setting is meant for FROZEN items. When I pulled out the plate of the rolled dough, I discovered the dough was tepid and soft, un-unrollable. D'oh!
I hatched Plan B—cookies. That plan worked OK. Yield was 13, with confetti sprinkles, but I thought it could use additional sweetening.
I hatched the sweet-tweak the next day after having only three cookies left. I spread some vanilla frosting, then glued additional sprinkles.
During the resolution of the pie dough, I poked around the web for ideas about pie dough cookies. I also expanded my thoughts about easy cooky making. Not addressing no-effort, ready-to-eat cookies nor the other extreme—scratch cookies. (I'm practically on permanent hiatus from physical effort and expense required for scratch cookies.)
Actual Pie Crust Cookies
I stumbled upon some sites for making cookies from pie crust. Some recipes use unroll-pie-crust dough, some suggest either unroll-dough or homemade. One calls for leftover dough. The commonality of these recipes is addition of cinnamon and extra sugar. Looks like adding butter is helpful.
"3-Ingredient Cinnamon Sugar Cookies" is a true unroll-pie-dough recipe that uses only pie crust, sugar, and cinnamon. This recipe would not have worked in my case, as my dough was already kaput.
"Easy Pie Crust Cookies" actually calls for a package of refrigerated Pillsbury Pie Crusts! She adds cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter, then cooky-cuts them out.
"Pie Crust Cookies" provides guidance for using leftover pie crust. I do wonder about the small scale the baker uses—4 ounces of pie dough and rest of ingredient amounts. BTW, she calls for a lot more than three ingredients. The pix, however, are divine!
"Easy Pie Crust Cookies" also suggests either store-bought or homemade pie crust. Spartan amount of ingredients besides the crust—sugar, cinnamon, and optionally, melted butter. Her recipe uses cooky cutters.
Pretty EZ Cooky Dough Using Room-temperature Kits
Making cookies out of refrigerated rolled pie dough like I did is not economical. The pack of two was ~$3, total of just over 14 ounces. You can buy cooky mix in the cake aisle for about $2 for 17.5 ounces (example: Betty Crocker) with several varieties.
BTW, I used only one-half of my pie dough package for the 13 cookies. From looking at a website for BC cookies, the entire package yield would be 36. Sooo, if I'd used half of a BC package, the cost would have been 1/3 less than the pie dough, and the yield would have been about 50% more.
Almost EZ Cooky Dough Using Cake Mix
The standard easy recipe I use is one box of yellow cake mix, 1/3 C oil, and 2 eggs. Yellow cake is easy because the ingredients are simple. I'm not sure how factory ingredients differ among yellow, white, and butter-recipe; however, I know they require different added ingredients. For chocoholics, chocolate cake mix requires the same ingredients as yellow cake.
As for economy, each boxful weighs about 15.25 ounces. The yield, after adding oil and eggs, can range between 48 and 56. Yield is even higher, but the cost also more, if you add in choco chips and nuts.
EZ Cooky Dough Using Refrigerated Pre-mixed Cooky Dough
Refrigerated pre-mixed cooky dough comes in two forms—pellet-shapes and sausage-shaped wrapped ("chub"). Pellets come usually 24 to a pound. Open the pack, break at edges onto pan, and bake in pre-heated oven. With the slightly more laborious chubbed dough, peel away the plastic wrap, spoon the dough onto pan(s) or cut into pieces onto pan(s), and bake in pre-heated oven.
So, are you inclined to make pie dough cookies? Various other types of cookies with varying efforts?
The lemon meringue pie I made Friday 5/1 (May Day) is a followup to the pies I made in March ("Assessing My Mid-March 2020 Lemon Meringue Pie" (article, video) and December ("Assessing My Christmas 2019 Lemon Meringue Pie" (article, video). Timing the pies on significant days makes it easier for me to remember when I made them.
May Day Not the Same as Mayday—MayDay a Nod to Both Terms
"History and Origin of May Day" provides background of the celebration of May 1—"celebration dates back to the days, even before the birth of Christ. And like many ancient festivals it too has a Pagan connection." The significant symbol is the maypole. "What Is May Day?" includes similar info but also describes the rise of the date's significance to worker issues in the 1800s. "May Day" further describes actions by American presidents Cleveland and Eisenhower pertaining to workers and observation dates.
As for mayday, "May Day" explains that it is a distress call and the phonetic reason for its pronunciation—"it sounded like 'm'aider,' a shortened version of the French term for 'come and help me.'" For fuller explanation, visit "What Does Mayday Mean?"
Mulling Over Differences Between This Pie and Previous Ones
For the previous two pies, I used frozen pie shells that came with their own pans. This pie shell was a refrigerated one that needed unrolling, then shaping into a pie pan before pricking and baking it. Pie tasted good, as the previous two tries.
The main oddity is fluid that I'd characterize as dewiness rather than weepiness. Instead of cutting the finished pie the same day, I stored it in a cake tote overnight. Next day (day 1), I noticed dew drops. Cutting and removing two slices showed the pan to be dry. For days 2 and 3, I'm guessing it's condensation in the pan where I'd previously removed slices.
I did butcher the slicing—maybe moreso than the other two. I should have dipped the knife into hot water first before cutting into the pie.
Homing in on the Possible REAL Reason(s) for Excess Fluid
I reviewed still images for all three pies, in addition to re-viewing the videos. At the time the pies came out of the oven, the pies looked good. After time of refrigeration, dew drops had formed.
Christmas 2019 pie—I made it in the morning and had time to cool and serve slices that day. No dew drops (and fluid) until the day after. Dryness at cut slices indicate my fluid problems were actually dew. Although using food wrap for overnight day 1 and 2, new fluid (dewiness) developed.
Mid-March 2020 pie—I started part of the process in the morning and completed it after lunch (interruption between pie filling and meringue slathering). Found info later that the hot filling helps cook the slathered meringue. Weepiness occurs because reheating the filling in the oven creates trapped condensation between the shell and the pan. Although using food wrap for overnight day 1 & 2, new fluid developed, I think from both baking process AND dewiness.
May-Day 2020 pie—I made the pie after lunch; it took HOURS for cooldown. Decided to store it overnight in the cake tote, uncut. Dew drops the next day. Not a lot of fluid after slicing till subsequent days. Although using aluminum foil for overnight day 2 & 3, new fluid (dewiness) developed.
Resolving Excess Fluid for the Next Pie
I've seen several sites say to make a lemon meringue pie on low-humidity days. Maybe not willing to wait till winter, but could try to ensure sunny days.
I think the food wrap and foil storage methods don't seal the pie well enough to keep out surrounding refrigeration atmosphere. Two things I can do:
Minimize the time that I have the pie out in room temperature before returning it to the refrigerator. Soooo, fewer pix next time!
Use a smaller and more shape-appropriate container to enclose the pie. I'll set the pie my 9 1/2" springform cake pan (3" deep), and cover it with a snug tin lid. Lucky I managed to rustle them up!
Incidental Should-Does for Future Pie (Room for Improvement)
Start and finish making the pie early in the day so it'll be ready to serve by early afternoon or right after dinner. Related: Cool baked pie on a rack for an hour, then refrigerate for further cooling till refrigerator temperature (4 hours or so).
Cut with a sharp knife dipped in HOT water.
Revisit sites and videos that show good meringue making for the following considerations:
Optimal stickiness of whipped meringue to beater blade(s)
Optimal time for adding sugar
Suggestions for egg white temperatures
Possible addition of cornstarch during meringue process
Whimsical might-do—try Lemon Kool-Aid powder and water instead of lemon juice.
Resources
It's a big list. Several sites include similar pieces of advice, many pertaining to the meringue process, pie cooling, and pie storage. Visit the sites and come up with your own advisory list. (Duplicated info can help reinforce important points!) Maybe you'll have beginner's luck and make a perfect pie! I'm still not there yet, despite several tries over time!
About as easy a recipe for a beginner as possible (3 eggs, 1/2 C lemon juice, info for using frozen shells or refrigerated dough)
The lemon meringue pie I prepared Sunday 3/15 (Ides of March Day) is a followup to my pie I wrote about in "Assessing My Christmas 2019 Lemon Meringue Pie". I'd considered making it 3/14 (Pi Day), but maybe a bit too late for adequate cooling before serving.
Christmas 2019's "Room for Improvement" Reminders
I revisited parts in the "Room for Improvement" section to remind myself for the next pie try.
Reminder 1: The filling color was less yellowy than I expected.
Action: To make the filling more yellowy, I added 6 drops of yellow food coloring into the freshly prepared pie filling.
Reminder 2: The meringue was maybe too thin in a couple of areas near the crust edge.
Action: To avoid post-baked pie showing gaps at filling, I slathered the meringue more thickly near the pie edge.
Reminder 3: With so much time for the pie to cool and set, consider the pie to be a 6-hour process.
Action: After baking the meringue-covered pie, i cooled it for about an hour, then put it in a cake-taker into the fridge for about 4 hours more. (Too little cooling time, and the pie doesn't firm up for clean cutting.)
Reminder 4: Each time after cutting into the pie, I need to cover with plastic wrap, pressing out air from cut areas.
Explanation and action: This info referred to my Christmas pie's "weepiness" (wateriness), which occurred all four days of cutting and serving, dabbing the excess fluid between days. Wrapping after 3rd day cut/serve seemed to help prevent much weepiness for the next day. HOWEVER, this newer pie had weepiness issues all four days, even as I had plastic-wrapped each remainder portion. More about pie weepiness later.
This Pie's Good
The filling coloring came out nicely lemony looking. The meringue baked prettily and showed no gaps into the filling. As expected, the pie tasted yummy! I left plenty of time for pie cooling. As for Reminders 3 and 4, they're related to one major misstep, maybe two.
This Pie's Bad and Ugly
The weepiness (both bad and ugly) was a major disappointment. I went over my links from the Christmas pie article. Based on a couple of items from "Lemon Meringue Pie & Tips for Beginners", two actions I took contributed greatly to the liquidity (good for financial assets, bad for lemon meringue).
** Misstep: I had let the pie filling cool off before pouring it into the baked pie shell. I should not have squeezed in a non-pie task during the pie-making process. Future: Ensure no interruptions for future lemon meringue pie projects.
Advice from Meringue for Pie section:
Please make sure your filling is piping hot, fresh from the saucepan, when you pour it into the shell and add the meringue!! The filling has to be hot because the steam will travel up through the egg whites and cook the meringue from the bottom. If the filling has cooled, when the pie goes in the oven, the heat will heat up the filling and the steam will get trapped between the filling and meringue, creating a watery layer that causes the top and filling to separate.
** Misstep: I used plastic food wrap.
Advice from from Pie in Oven section:
When it’s browned to your liking, pull it out. I would let it cool for an hour or so before serving, but this is one of those pies that tastes best at room temperature on the same day it’s made. If it doesn’t get eaten all in one day, put it in the fridge loosely covered with foil. Plastic wrap will create too much moisture.
** Possible misstep: One other stage of the pie making that might have affected the pie quality. The pie shell had been zipper-locked in the freezer for a few months. When I brought it out to thaw in preparation for baking, I noticed a few hairline splits in the dough. Patched them with a few small loose dough lumps. After baking the shell, I noticed more hairline splits. I decided to use the shell anyway.
Room for Improvement
Overall project process: Consider the process to be a mission! Ensure no time breaks or interruptions.
Specifics:
Try using a refrigerated pie shell that unrolls onto a pie pan, then fork-prick it and bake as instructed.
Be sure the pie filling is hot when pouring it into the cooled and baked pie shell.
For covering leftover pie, use aluminum foil, not plastic food wrap.
Future Pie
I have another 3 tablespoons of a 15-ounce bottle of lemon juice to use up. I'll consider making the next lemon meringue pie around April Fool's Day, Good Friday, Easter, May Day, .... My Room for Improvement section will help guide me.
This Pie's Title
I'd been thinking about making this pie for awhile, as the remaining pie shell didn't fit well in the freezer. However, other distractions and tasks kept surfacing. On Pie Day (3/14, aka 3.14), by the time I thought about making it, it was already mid-afternoon, a bit late for enough cooling time.
Sooo, maybe the next day? After also pondering Ides of March, March Madness, St. Patrick's Day, and Middlemarch for March significances, I decided on mid-March as a reasonable nod to calendar timing.
Some bites of March info:
"A number of things to know on Pi Day" explains pi as a mathematical term and celebration of the number on March 14, along with the tasty edible.
I hadn't made a lemon meringue pie in, uh, lots of years. It tasted good, and looked mostly good before I started cutting into it. ("Wateriness" loomed large, which I'll discuss later.)
The driving force to make the pie was using up bottled lemon juice that I opened last month. (Used only 2 T with yellow cake batter for lemon cake variation.) During and after the pie project, pertinent thoughts popped up.
My main Google search term was “easy lemon meringue pie”. Most recipes I ran across called for 1/3 cup. One recipe that called for 1/2 cup of lemon juice was at allrecipes.com "Lemon Meringue Pie III". Pillsbury’s "Lemon Meringue Pie" also calls for ½ cup of lemon juice.
Pie Shell Type (Scratch, Frozen, Refrigerated, Graham Cracker Crust)
I bought ("Pillsbury™ Pet-Ritz™ Regular Pie Crusts". (Convenient that it supplied a recipe for lemon meringue pie.) Although I’d made pies last year with scratch crust, I wasn’t in the mood this time. Scratch ingredients are cheap, and you know what goes into the shells. However, scratch shells are labor-intensive. View “Cherry Pie—Section 2 of 3, Pie Dough Preparation”, which also includes a link to the blog article.
I chose frozen instead of refrigerated for handling convenience. The frozen shells come preformed with own pans. As for graham cracker pie crusts, I’d not considered them, but I know of recipes to make them. Furthermore, they are available pre-made with shell in baking aisles.
Lemon Pie Filling Complexities
I felt intimidated when recently reading the “pudding” process from several sources. Measurements, sequence of items, constant stirring, stovetop monitoring are crucial. I myself have used cornstarch-as-thickener process numerous time for many years, including past lemon meringue pies. After the process, I decided it wasn’t so difficult after all (again).
Cream of Tartar in Meringue
Meringue is mainly egg whites with loads of sugar and air. When it’s ready to use, it resembles shaving cream. Some recipes I ran across omit cream of tartar, some bakers advocate it wholeheartedly as a bubble stabilizer. Never heard of or used cream of tartar? "What Is Cream of Tartar—and What Can I Substitute for It?"states that it's "a byproduct of wine production, the residue left on the barrels".
I use cream of tartar as a stabilizer in any recipe that calls for whipping egg whites, even when the recipe doesn’t call for it. I simply add 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar per cup of egg whites—or 1/4 teaspoon for every 4 egg whites—to the bowl with the egg whites before I begin whipping, and then proceed with the recipe as written. Some of my most respected colleagues use twice as much cream of tartar as I do, so you can choose how much to use.
Meringue Making
As a former newbie to meringue making, I was amazed at how much volume a few egg whites could expand to, with beating lots of air into them, and snowy white! It takes time! If you have a tilt-head mixer, that’s your friend to hold the beater up, and you need to add the sugar in spoonfuls for ensuring good sweetener distribution.
Several sites explain the process so you can see what ready meringue batches look like. Most bakers advocate spreading it onto poured pie filling while it’s warm or hot. At least one mentions a cool pie filling. They all stress spreading the meringue to the pie edge, totally sealing the filling.
Post-piebake Cooldown
Time ranges from one hour before cutting and serving to at least three. Some advice includes refrigeration. My lesson learned (sigh) is to be patient, wait long, and include a period of refrigeration before cutting. I had let it cool at room temperature for 2 ½ hours without refrigeration.
The Pillsbury frozen pie recipe states prep time of one hour, and total preparation time of five and a quarter hours. The cooling info says to cool completely; a subsequent sentence says to refrigerate about three hours, implying a room-temperature cooling time of 1 ¼ hours. Duh, I just noticed the online Pillsbury recipe "Lemon Meringue Pie" lists one hour for room temperature cooling.
Place the warm pie on a cooking rack for up to two hours. ... Refrigerate the pie for one hour if you prefer to serve it chilled. Make sure the pie has cooled to room temperature before refrigerating. Slice the pie in six or eight pieces with a sharp, thin-bladed knife. Make certain you cut all the way through the crust. If the lemon filling does not slice cleanly, you may need to cool your pie longer.
The hardest part about this recipe is waiting for the custard filling to set. It takes a few hours and is 100% worth it if you're hoping to get a nice slice.
Cool completely, about 1 hour, then refrigerate until filling is set, 3 hours.
From once upon a chef's "Lemon Meringue Pie": "Let the pie cool completely on a rack before serving, about 3 hours."
Pie Wateriness, Weepiness, Sogginess
The initial wateriness was from the pie filling not setting fully—temperature and time. Served up two slices and spooned excess fluid. Refrigerated overnight; saw new excess fluid at cut area. Served up another two slices and spooned excess fluid. Third day, more of the same condition—new excess fluid at cut area. A few hours later, researched and found info about covering pie with foil or wrap. Did that, after I dabbed some already-developing fluid. Day four—success! Minimal excess fluid.
Refrigeration makes meringue weep more quickly, so let the pie stand at room temperature in a draft-free spot before serving it. After a few hours, however, it will need to be refrigerated.
"Prevent Weeping Meringue" states "Weeping occurs as moisture begins to slowly seep out of the meringue layer and ruin both the look and therefore the appeal of this otherwise delightful creation."
Room for Improvement
A future pie by me is sure to be better with the following reminders, as long as I don’t forget or ignore other info I’ve written.
The filling color was less yellowy than I expected. I used bottled lemon juice and skipped putting in peel (aka zest), as many other recipes call for. I did run across a few sites that mention using a few drops of yellow food coloring into the filling.
The meringue was maybe too thin in a couple of areas near the crust edge. Next time I’ll be sure to slather the meringue and seal the edge thickly.
With so much time for the pie to cool and set, consider the pie to be a 6-hour process. Definitely need ensure the baked pie is cool, at least an hour, then place it in the fridge for 3 ¼ hours.
The overnight wateriness over three days surprised me. Each time after cutting into pie, I need to cover with plastic wrap, pressing out air from cut areas.
BTW, it's good that I used the Pillbury recipe rather than allrecipes one, which calls for a fourth egg and extra 1/3 cup of water. They would have overflowed the pie crust. The online Pillsbury pie recipe calls for refrigerated pie shell, but ingredients and process are the same.
Additional Helpful Sites
Food for the cool's "Lemon Meringue Pie & Tips for Beginners" has lengthy helpful info for beginners and remedials is a long read, but has gems worth noting. (I myself found the process more work than I'd want to do in the future.) One passage seems pretty important WRT filling temperature:
make sure your filling is piping hot, fresh from the saucepan, when you pour it into the shell and add the meringue!! The filling has to be hot because the steam will travel up through the egg whites and cook the meringue from the bottom. If the filling has cooled, when the pie goes in the oven, the heat will heat up the filling and the steam will get trapped between the filling and meringue, creating a watery layer that causes the top and filling to separate.
"highly recommend a stand mixer for this! If not, you can still beat it with a hand mixer, but your arm will be tired."
"Magic Lemon Meringue Pie | Food Network" is intriguing for ease and brevity. The pie crust is graham cracker crust. Video shows meringue consistency to emulate, which she makes before making the filling. The filling is condensed milk, egg yolks, and lemon juice. Interesting that the filling color is similar to mine--offwhite rather than yellowy.
"Easy Lemon Meringue Pie" shows an unusual filling. Best attraction is her showing the meringue consistency and spreading at the end.
Use a glass pie plate for your lemon meringue pie. A pie baked in a glass plate will absorb heat from the oven faster, which makes the pie bake more quickly, making it firm and preventing it from getting too soggy from the filling.
Place the pie in the bottom half of the oven so that the pie crust is closer to the direct heat of the oven. The faster the pie crust cooks, the less chance there will be of having a soggy crust.
The writeup is finally here! It deviates from my usual recipe articles of including imperative steps, which could make this article REALLY long and maybe more difficult to follow than going to my video(s). The process has two separate stages and the convergence stage: fruit filling preparation, pie dough preparation, and pie assembly/baking. Although the number of ingredients are few, the processes require time, timing, and order. If you try this recipe, you should first read the article and view the video (three sections) thoroughly.
The ingredients are few:
Cherry pie filling: 1 pound frozen cherries, 1 C granulated sugar, 1/4 C cornstarch, 1/2 C water
Pie crust: 2 1/4 C flour, 1 T powdered sugar (granulated ok), 3/4 t salt, up to 3/4 C water
Historically, for recipes I've posted, I've listed required equipment. In this case, because bakers' tool preferences can vary widely, the video sections provide the best visual guidelines. The following actions are a few examples of deviating from traditional pie-making norms.
For the pie filling, I coated frozen cherries and granulated sugar in a bowl, chilling them overnight and occasionally stirring to get the cherries to juice up. The cherries bag includes thawing instructions that might speed up the process. Some people prefer fresh cherries that they de-stem and pit. Others use canned or jar cherries, which require different processes.
For mixing of pie dough ingredients, I used a tilt-head stand mixer for ease. In the past, I have used a pastry blender. Some people prefer to use two forks.
For cutting the butter, I used a combination of french fry cutter and butter knife. I've seen videos for various butter shapes from pat slices to butter cube in its entirety.
For rolling out of pie dough, I used a Joseph rolling pin on a cutting board. Other bakers use various rolling pins and work surfaces.
For fruit pie venting, required for steam escape during baking, I latticed the top crust using a pizza cutter and an inverted cooling rack. (Numerous sites show different methodologies for latticing.) Typical top crusts have slits, which are faster to implement.
One picture is worth a thousand words, and the video is worth a lot more. The entire video turns out to be 2.5G and 26:10 long. To make upload more manageable, I split it into sections 1, 2, and 3. You can view them as a playlist or as standalone segments. Title screens within the sections display text for preparing the fruit filling, preparing the pie dough, and assembling the pie and baking it.
Future Pie Thoughts
I've made three cherry pies in the recent past. For making a more perfect pie, hopefully using less time, I'll try the following actions:
Instead of overnight thawing of cherries and sugar, I'll try using the microwave oven, carefully monitoring and periodically stirring.
Weigh out my two pie doughs before rolling them out. I have tended to barely cover the pan with the bottom shell, and rolled out too much dough for the top shell (lattice).
Buy and use a pastry mat that has concentric circles as visual guides for pie shell diameters. The circles should help me stay inside the "lines". Related, for my third pie, I used an Oneida cutting board for my dough surface. It was OK, but the board slid around, even with a somewhat damp kitchen cloth. The silicone mats are reported to stay put during use. Possible candidate mats:
Previously in "Cherry Pie, Episode 1--the Newish Baker Challenge", I wrote that I would put the recipe in the next article (meaning this one). Well, this blog article WAS going to be about the complete cherry pie recipe process, along with a link to a YouTube video. However, a big snag came up. The big snag and other factors nudged me to write this interim article instead.
Oops and aww (biggest snag): My camera battery ran out before I could finish recording all of pie #2 process.
My camera died about halfway through the lattice-cutting stage. My final video will be a composite of steps I took for making pie #2 and pie #3. It'll be a Frankenstein assemblage of video clips and edits—more clips of the better results and omission of some of the not-so-hot ones. The entire recipe will be in Episode 3 article.
Oops and ahh: I missed integrating the butter into the dry ingredients, but the crust came out fine anyway.
I had forgotten the step of slowly mixing the cut butter into the stirred dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar) before adding water. (I'd interrupted my dough process to eat breakfast.) I put the bowl of butter and dry ingredients into the refrigerator, to resume the process afterward in about an hour.
After breakfast, I resumed the dough process. I trickled icy water into the slowly moving mixer, watching for dough texture to become acceptable. After turning out the dough onto my floured work surface, I pressed it, folded it towards me, pressed, folded, left-right, pressed, wrapped in plastic wrap, and refrigerated it.
When I realized I'd omitted the intermediate step, I compensated by refrigerating the mixed, plastic-wrapped dough for about three hours before rollout. (Numerous sites recommend at least one hour.)
Anyway, the missed step did not affect the outcome of the crust. Two possible actions that might have helped the crust results:
Tossing the cut butter pieces through the dry ingredients, thus coarse-integrating the ingredients while coating the butter
Refrigerating the bowlful of butter and dry ingredients for an hour during my leisurely breakfast, thus chilling the ingredients before further mixing
For pie #3, I'll refrigerate the plastic-wrapped dough for only an hour and see if the crust quality differs.
Oops: The fruit fluid was a bit thick for my pasta drainer to strain the cherries.
For the fruit-and-sugar-overnight process, I used my pasta drainer, similar to the "Stainless Steel Pot Drainer with Handle". The task was awkward. The holes were a bit undersized for draining the viscous fluid from the cherries. Also, holding the drainer against the bowl was somewhat unwieldy.
I decided to root around my kitchen gadgets for a more suitable straining device. Next pie, I'll try my fry basket, which resembles one from Lionsdeal. One possible workaround for easier draining is warming up the fruit mixture in the microwave until the fluid becomes runnier.
Oops: The length of the new Joseph adjustable rolling pin overspanned the existing cutting board that I used for dough rollout.
The cutting board I used was 13 inches wide. The roller (between the gauges) measures more than that, thus, making the roller's thickness wheel gauges ineffective. I've bought and will use a 16" x 16" plastic cutting board that will more than accommodate the roller.
Aww: My latticing skills still need work.
My pressing down of the rectangular cooling rack didn't help me with cutting lattice strips very straight. Next pie, I'll use a pizza cutter with cooling rack together to make the cuts. It'll be like using an X-Acto knife and a straightedge that has yoked multiple edges.
Ahh: My crust for pies #1 and #2 seemed tough as time passed, but dough treatment wasn't the reason.
The key is that refrigerated pie crust gets harder because of butter getting more solid when chilled. The day after the pie was in the refrigerator, I cut a piece and warmed it in the microwave. Eureka! Yummy pie with tender crust! The Other likes his pie cold, and my entreaties to warm his were soundly rejected. Anyway, if your cooled-down pie crust seems tough, warm it up.
Speaking of pie crust, I did some research on economics of DIY crust. Ingredients are cheaper for homemade, and you know all the items you're putting in. Prices are approximate, and YMMV for amounts, as humidity and measurement methods can differ.
For scratch crust ingredients, the most significant for cost are flour and butter. I'm excluding cost and weight for sugar and salt, as their bulk and cost impacts are negligible. Estimates:
flour (~ $2 for 5 pounds, estimation of 20-25 cents for 2 1/4 C flour)
butter (~$3.50 per pound, estimation of $1.30 for 3/8 pound)
Calculating about $1.50 for ~9 oz flour, 5 oz butter, 6 oz water and weight of about 1 1/4 pounds (20 oz).
Ahh: I discovered that baking the pie at one temperature was as effective as baking initially at higher temperature, then lowering it.
I baked the pie at 375° for 30 minutes, placed my pie shield on it, and baked it for another 30 minutes. Upon cutting it open three hours later, I felt that another 5 minutes baking might have browned the underside more without burning it.
Ahh: The fruit sauce held together well, barely pooling. By the last day, only a little of the sauce pooled. Incidentally, this pie lasted us only three days; pie #1 lasted four days.
One more incidental: This unbaked pie weighed 2 pounds, 15 ½ ounces with pan; pan weighs 2 ounces. The baked pie and pan (20 minutes after removal from oven and reweighed ~ 1 hour later) weighed 2 pounds, 14 ounces. Net weight loss through water vapor evaporation was 2 ½ ounces.
This article is an assessment of a cherry pie I made last month. I'd not made a scratch pie in many years—scratch meaning pie dough from scratch ingredients and fresh filling. My recollection of the most recent crusts were frozen pre-made ones in pans or rolled up disks, all of which required thawing. They were really convenient! As for filling, the previous cherry pie was years ago that required two cans of filling. Or maybe they were cans of fruit that I needed to make cornstarch sauce.
Anyway, I wanted to try my new tilt-head stand mixer for pie crust, hoping to save shoulders and arms from elbow-grease effort of a manual pastry blender. I pored over numerous sites for guidance for pie making, particularly crust ingredients and processes. For the cherry filling, I decided I'd use frozen cherries rather than fresh that would need pitting, or canned, whether they were pre-sauced or required fluid thickening.
The big-picture pie-making process is as follows:
Acquire two pie crusts or make your own. Ingredients are flour, fat, salt, sugar (optional), and water. The amounts vary from recipe to recipe. The sequence of additions and process are similar among recipes.
Acquire filling or make from ingredients you buy. For fruit pies, ingredients are mainly fruit, sugar, cornstarch or other thickening agents, and fluid. The sequence of additions and process are similar among recipes, but can vary widely.
Assemble (crust in pan, then filling, then "vented" top crust), and bake. Single-crust pies can require pre-baking. Lattice-top pies provide venting as well as decoration. Temperatures and durations vary widely among recipes. Some recipes include extra efforts and more items than others. A pie crust shield or foil at the rim is helpful for avoiding edge overbaking.
My pie tasted good, but had some issues that I hope to improve my process for the next pass. Before I get into the next-time discussion, I'm noting some innovations I implemented.
Home Innovations
During my research of pie making, I thought of implements that I had that might help in my pie making.
Using a Vintage French Fry Cutter for Cutting Butter
I saw various approaches to butter use—tablespoon slices, pat-size slices, 1 cm (.39”) cubes, and whole-stick. I myself used a hand-held French fry cutter and butter knife to easily cut butter into cubes as follows:
Halved one stick so three sections are small enough to fit the cutter sideways.
Pushed the cutter halfway down.
Used the butter knife to cut at the grid wires.
Pushed the cutter farther down.
Used the knife to finish pushing the rest of the butter from the opposite side.
Using Two-Color Alternating-Stripe Cutting Board for Dough Surface
I used a cutting board (12” x 13”) that had alternating dark and light wood sections. The size was helpful for easily rotating the dough 90° at a time during rolling out time. The stripes, although not consistent widths, were helpful guidelines for cutting the lattice strips.
Post-Pie Implementation Thoughts
The thawed cherries were fragile and required tender treatment when stirring in 1 C sugar. Next time, will stir sugar with the frozen cherries, then refrigerate so the cherries juice up and thaw overnight. Stirring will be minimal the next day.
The baked pie crust seemed normal the first day, but seemed tougher in the three subsequent days. I might not have handled the dough as well as I could have. Next time, I will try improving methodology and equipment.
Use my newly acquired Joseph adjustable rolling pin. This roller has measurements for dough width and circular end gauges for dough thickness.
The latticing was awkward, and I ended up with three strips for one axis and five in the other axis. Next time I’ll cut 12 strips and be more methodical about weaving them. (For marking strips, I'm going to use a cooling rack and pizza cutter—press the rack's rack wires along the top crust, then cut the strips.) Some sites for latticing guidance:
The fruit sauce pooled somewhat at the bottom of the pie, even on the fourth day. Next time, I’ll drain the fruit liquid more thoroughly into the saucepan and be sure that the cornstarch sauce thickens up well.
Note: Pie pan size selection will greatly influence the amount of ingredients and time required for baking. The pie pan I used was an 8" Marie Callender metal pan (~1 1/2 pints water capacity), which was a good size for my fruit filling (1 pound rozen cherries processed with sugar, cornstarch, and water).
Visit blog articles of my other two cherry pie learning processes.
My profession had been technical writer/editor. Through TheWriteJob clublet (blog at http://thewritejob.blogspot.com), I have been exploring my inner creative writing, which includes mostly language enlightenment, entertainment, and a-muse-meant. Over time, I have become more active with images and my YouTube channel.
