Pie

I had a specific request for a pie entry since "pies were my specialty." I would definitely not call pies my speciality, especially since I cannot roll out a proper crust for the life of me, but it's a great excuse for me to use the special pie tool Mattsy (my grandmother and mother of all family cooking) gave to me. This pie cutter belonged to her grandmother, and she gave it to me over Thanksgiving, during the big lemon meringue fiasco. Needless to say, it's a pretty special utensil.

family heirloom pie tool

The circular side is used to cut the dough and the flat/rounded side is to shape the crust - but more on that later. First, I need to tell you about how to make the infamous Dullum family dough. Here's the recipe:

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup shortening
4 TBS butter
1/2 cup cold water beaten with 1 egg white

This makes 3 pie crusts or tops (or 2 crusts and 1 top etc.)

Combine the flour and salt, then cut in the shortening and butter until it has cornmeal consistency. Add the water/egg mix and mix lightly. Form into 3 balls and refrigerate until it is ready to use. At this point Mattsy always tells me "dough does NOT like to be played with or kept warm - stop playing with it and put it in the fridge!" You better do it. Mattsy will know if you don't.

dough ball getting ready to be wrapped up in
aluminum foil and refrigerated

The next step is to make the filling. Ian and I are not big traditional pie fans - pecan,  lemon meringue, rhubarb - but we both love apple pie. Unfortunately, the only recipe I have for apple does not use a crust (it's an "apple crunch" - baked apple with a cinnamon sugar crumble crust). So, I went to the recipe books and cobbled together an apple filling recipe that I thought would do. This is based on a Mastering recipe by MC [Ms. Childs]:

5-6 big apples, cored and pealed
1/4 cup brandy
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 TBS butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 orange rind grated

First up, core, peel and chop up the apples. Then you chunk the apples into a big pan and put them over low heat until they are soft - I did about 30 minutes. I figured that you would have to put butter or something in there so they wouldn't stick, but not at all.

unsticky apples

Then add in all the other ingredients and inhale because the scent is awesome. You let it simmer for a while, its suggested 20 minutes, but I did it for like an hour because I got caught up in making dinner and it tasted fine.

nom, nom

While this was going on, I also made the crust so I could pre-bake it for a little while. First step is to roll out the dough. I am reknown for my lack of skill in dough rolling - I always have one side a little bigger than the other, and about 25% of the time get the crust stuck to the cutting board. But, according to Mattsy, the trick is to pick up the dough and swish it around the board frequently, sweeping up the excess flour. Then use the pie dish to measure the size you want for the pie crust and flip it in.

Mattsy's trick for flipping it is to pull half of the dough onto the rolling pin the use that to place the rest of it into the pie pan. I did not get a picture of that because I only have 2 hands.

Then turn up the sides and make them pretty. This is where the pie tool comes in. Here is how I try to "make things pretty" without it:

blerg!

BUT with a quick press around the sides with the pie cruster tool it looks like this:

beautiful!

I need to work with it some more to get the technique down, but I'm pretty happy with the result so far. The recipe called for a "semi-baked crust" so I popped it into the oven for 15-20 at 375, then took it back out and filled it with the filling. Next I got started on the top - I rolled out another ball of dough, and got to use my pie tool again to cut out a perfect circle. You just set the pie plate on the rolled out crust, then follow the edge to get the perfect sized crust:

You also get a nice ridge design on the edge too. Next, lay the crust on the top and bake. I silly-ly folded it a bit in the middle since it was "too big", but I forgot to factor in the shrinkage that happens while banking, so the top was a bit shy of the edge. I should have trusted the pie tool that is 3x as old as I am.

I think the top was a little undercooked, so next time I'm not going to pre-bake the crust (take that MC!). On the top I have the "rosebuds" that Mattsy used to make for me when I was a kid. You take the leftover dough and form little flower buds (mine are more post-modern rosebuds), and roll them in sugar and place them on the top of the pie before you bake it. They may be my favorite part of a pie.

4.5 our of 5 on Yum scale

It was really yummy, and the whole process reminded me of  baking with Mattsy when I was a kid - probably where all this love of cooking came from. I think next time I am going to use a little less zest. It was perfect that night, but eating the leftover for breakfast this morning (yes Ian does that), Ian said it was a little too orange-y. With those modifications, this recipe is definitely going down in the family recipe book.