23 June 2019
Recipe from Cook's Country, August 2016
When it comes to making pies, my confidence level is low. As a result I don't make as many pies as I otherwise would, and that is a shame because I like to eat pie. My lack of confidence relates to my ability to handle the pastry crust. From rolling out the dough (it never looks like a circle when I'm done with it) to putting it into the pie pan, trimming it, and crimping it ... I'm just never happy with the result. I know that all I need is practice. A perfect opportunity presented itself a few weeks ago as we visited Gizdich Ranch to pick ollalieberries. Most of them were made into jam but we set aside enough to make a pie, too. I used a recipe that calls for marionberries, but ollalies are similar so it should work fine.
The recipe uses an all-butter crust. Some sour cream was added to provide a little tang and to make the dough easier to roll out. The half pound of butter was cut into little, ¼-inch pieces. These were combined with the dry ingredients (flour, salt, sugar) with ten pulses in a food processor, about 10 pulses. Ice water was added and pulsed to form a dough that held together nicely. It was shaped into a disk, wrapped in plastic, and chilled for 80 minutes in the refrigerator. It was then divided into two equal portions. One was rolled into a disk and chilled. The other was rolled into a disk, cut into 1" strips, and chilled. To prepare the filling, 4 cups of berries (22 ounces) was gently coated with a mixture of sugar, cornstarch, and salt. These were then gently stirred with some lemon juice. The chilled dough was placed in a pie plate, the filling was added and dotted with butter. The strips were used to make a simple lattice which was not woven but looks almost as good. The edges were trimmed and crumpled and the pie was brushed with an egg wash. The pie was baked for 50 minutes in a 400° oven. Total time, excluding the four-hour cool down, was three hours, half of which was hands off.
This pie was great! Not only did it taste good but it looked good, too, providing me a much needed confidence boost in my pie-making skills. The filling was tart, but not too tart, with just the right amount of sweetness. It held together after cutting, no juice escaping into the bottom of the pie plate. The dough was easy to work with but ten pulses in the food processor were too many for the small pieces of butter: the crust was not real flaky, it was more like a short-crust pastry and it tasted great. It was a warm day when I made the pie so the dough was starting to get soft when I was crimping so it lost some definition, but I was still very happy with the result. I look forward to having this again when fresh-berry season comes around again.
