April 25, 2009 - Pie

It's been a hectic 2 weeks, so today is catch-up day. Saturday April 25 just so happened to be the day after my birthday, and I just so happened to have to get up at 6 am for school. I sacrificed a late night birthday celebration to be well-rested and fully functioning for Saturday's class. This truly is a labor of love.....well maybe sacrificed is a strong word, I actually just postponed it to Saturday night. So I woke up at 6 am, got ready, and walked one hour to school to be there at 8 (with all the butter I'm eating, I take any exercise I can get!).

After my experiences with pate sucree and tarts, I was a little weary of rolling out pie dough. Lucky for me, pate brisee is a lot easier to work with and the rolling was a breeze. In pretty much no time, I had a perfect pie crust ready to be filled with my tart apple blackberry mixture. I wanted to make a lattice, but was worried about ruining what so far was a flawless pie. Fortunately, my girl scout weaving skills came back to me and the end result was a beautiful, all American apple pie!

The pies brought us right up to lunch time. We had a delicious wild mushroom lasagna with a vegetable soup and fresh salad. After lunch, my pastry partners in crime (Liz and Becky) joined me for a walk along the Embarcadero. It wasn't until about 10 minutes into our walk that we realized we looked semi ridiculous strolling around as a group in our chef uniforms.

Nourished with lunch, and refreshed by our walk, it was was time to get back to work. I used my extra pie dough to make some mini crostatas filled with strawberries and blueberries.

When I was out of dough, I poured the remaining berries into a baking dish and topped with an almond crumble to make a fruit crisp.

Pie has never been my favorite dessert, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed making it. There is something very satisfying about the pie-making process from start to finish, and it is far from the near-impossible task many make it out to be.

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Strawberry, Rhubarb & Ginger Pie with Almond Crumble Topping

(from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet)

1 recipe Pate Brisee, placed into pie pan and chilled

For the topping:

• 4 oz unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3/4 oz sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 5 oz AP flour
• 1 oz almond meal

For the filling:

• 1 1/4 # (lbs) rhubarb, ends trimmed and cut into 1/2 " pieces (about 5 cups)
• 1 pint strawberries, hulled and quartered
• 7 oz sugar
• 3 Tbsp corn syrup
• 2 Tbsp crystalized ginger, finely chopped
• Zest of 1 large orange
• 3/4 oz raw sliced almonds
• 1 Tbsp turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place butter and sugar in bowl of stand mixer and beat on medium speed until very light, 5 minutes. Add extracts and salt and blend well. Add flour and almond meal all at once and turn speed to low, mixing 15-20 seconds, just until mixture forms small clumps the size of peas. Chill.

Combine fruit with sugar, cornstarch, ginger and zest. Toss gently to coat. Place filling into chilled pie shell. Scatter topping evenly over top. Sprinkle slived almonds over topping, then turbinado sugar. Bake 10 minutes, then turn oven down to 375 degrees and bake an additional 30-40 minutes, until pie shell is golden and fruit juices are bubbling.

Cool 40 minutes so some of the juices are reabsorbed.