Pie crust

“ The baking should be slow. If the pie be put into a hot oven, the crust becomes hard, and many a cook is blamed for making bad pies, when the fault really lies with the baker. A light and flaky pie crust can only be produced by the judicious application in the manner stated, of the butter, or fatty matter. By this means the butter is distributed, in distinct layers, through the mass of the pie crust. The flour dusted over each layer prevents the paste forming one mass, or, as it is called, becoming heavy. ”

“ A very palatable pie crust can be made of sweet cream and graham or entire wheat flour. Should be worked soft, made thin, and baked in a hot oven. Eaten the day it is baked. In a dietetic point of view there is little objection to this crust. Any acid fruit can be used for the filling. A crust of fine flour and lard does not make suitable nutriment for sick or well.
PIE FOR DYSPEPTICS.
Four table-spoons of oatmeal, one pint of water; let stand for a few hours, or till the meal is swelled. Then add two large apples, pared and sliced, a little salt, one cup of sugar, one table-spoon flour. ”

“ The excellence of this pie depends on having light crust, and therefore the meat must first be nearly cooked before putting it in the pie, and the crust must be in only just long enough to cook, or it will be clammy and hard. When nearly done, the crust can be browned, with hot coals on a bake-lid. Great care is needed not to burn the crust, which should not be put where the fire reached the pot on the bottom. ”

“ The very best way to prevent the under crust of a pie from being soggy and indigestible [305] is not to have one. Put the fruits into a fairly deep baking-dish and cover it with a flaky top crust. This is an English method which we should do well to follow. The result is more fruit and less crust, and none of that under crust which whatever pains you take will more or less relapse into dough.
Juicy pies must not be filled quite full, that they may not boil over in the oven. Openings cut in the crust help to prevent this; an inverted tea cup put into a deep pie is also a preventive. ”

“ Pies are not necessarily unwholesome articles of diet. They may be just good rich unleavened bread and fruit. Perhaps the greatest objection to pies occasionally, is the length of time it takes to make them, for paste that will make a tender crust cannot be rolled out in a hurry. It is better to have something else for dessert when one has not time to make a good pie.
Suggestions
Always use pastry flour (winter wheat) for pie crust. Bread flour requires more shortening, creeps together when rolled and does not make a nice, tender crust when you have done your best with it. ”

“ Line a deep dish with pie crust, fill it with dry pieces of bread; make a nice puff paste, and cover the dish with it, bake till of a light brown, either in a quick oven or bake pan, have the oysters just stewed, by the time the crust is done, take off the upper crust, and remove the pieces of bread, put in the oysters, season them with salt, pepper, and butter, a little catsup improves the pie, but is not essential, cover it with the crust. ”

“ A clammy lower-crust is neither good or digestible. Therefore never fill pies made of moist materials until just before putting them into the oven. Squash pies, cocoanut, and Marlborough puddings, &c., should not be filled until the last minute, and mince and stewed apple should only stand long enough for the upper-crust to be laid on. Pie-crust becomes yellow from standing long before being baked; therefore, delay rolling out the upper-crust for any kind of pies until the oven is nearly ready. Pastry should be baked in a quick oven, to be light, and be slightly browned to be healthy. ”

“ Pot Pie, of Beef, Veal, or Chicken.
The best way to make the crust is as follows. Peel, boil, and mash a dozen potatoes, add a teaspoonful of salt, two great spoonfuls of butter, and half a cup of milk, or cream. Then stiffen it with flour, till you can roll it. Be sure to get all the lumps out of the potatoes. Some persons leave out the butter.
Some roll butter into the dough of bread, others make a raised biscuit with but little shortening, others make a plain pie crust. But none are so good and healthful as the potato crust. ”

“ Mutton or lamb dripping are unfit for pie crust, as they make it taste of tallow. Suet will not do at all for baked paste, though very good if the paste is to be boiled. Butter and lard will make a nice plain paste for pies, if both are fresh and good; the butter to be rubbed into the flour, mixed with a little cold water, and rolled out; the lard to be spread evenly all over the sheet; then folded and rolled out again. Meat pies should always have a bottom crust, as the gravy it imbibes makes it very relishing. Veal pies are insipid without the addition of some cold ham. ”

“ Northwich has the misfortune to be built on the top of a pie-crust. If you [Pg 167] cover some fruit in a pie-dish with a crust and then pump out the juice and fruit through a hole in the crust and place a heavy weight on it, you naturally expect the crust to break and the weight to fall into the dish. The pie under Northwich is made of rock salt, and on the top of the salt is a large amount of juice (or brine) , and over it is the earth's crust. But a good many Jack Homers have been at this pie and have pumped the brine away. ”

“ For a change make a pie of the hash, pouring the gravy in through a hole in the top when done.
It is not generally known that a very nice plain paste can be made with a piece of bread dough, to which you have added an egg, and some lard, dripping, or butter. The dripping is particularly nice for the hash pie, and, as you need only a piece of dough as large as an orange, you will probably have enough from the soup, if you skimmed off all the fat before putting the vegetables in (see pot-au-feu) ; work your dripping into the dough,98 and let it rise well, then roll as ordinary pie-crust. ”

“ Some persons prefer to put in the molasses at first, and others use only sugar. It is very easy to improve it by rolling a little butter into the dough, exactly as in pie-crust; and if this is done once only, it makes the crust much more tender. Some persons put any crusts or pieces of bread they happen to have, into the apple, and if the crust that was baked with it is thin, it is a very good way. ”

“ No ill effects following the frequent eating of pie I attribute to their active life, the greater part of which, during the day, was usually spent in the open air, and some credit may he due the housewife for having acquired the knack of making good pie crust, which was neither very rich nor indigestible, if such a thing be possible. ”

“ Line pie plate with pastry dough or pie crust and bake light brown. Fill with the following mixture: Cook in double boiler one cup of water, with lemon skins to extract the juice; add rind and juice; beat yolks with sugar and add to pot. Wet cornstarch with cold water. Add to mixture with butter. When quite thick allow to cool slightly and add beaten whites. Pour all in baked pie crust and brown under the flame for a few minutes. ”

“ The pie crust is prepared as in No. 16. The mince filling is prepared by cooking the lean beef in a little water, then removing fat and membranes, and chopping it fine. Apples are peeled, cored, chopped. Mix apples, meat, molasses, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, suet, chopped fine, cider, raisins, currants, citron, butter, salt and brandy, put into the crust and bake 45 minutes. ”

“ I have been thus explicit because this is of all pie pastes the most important hygienically and in point of time. It is very quickly and easily made, in fact, it must be made quickly. If the crust stands long after the liquid is added, it does not spread well.
In making a large number of pies, mix each crust separately; you will save time. Zwieback crumbs may be used instead of granella and almond or cocoanut cream in place of dairy. The cream must be thin or the crust will not spread well. ”

“ Peel and grate six large quinces. Add half a pint of cream, half a pound of sugar, and six well-beaten eggs. Flavor with rose water, and bake in a buttered dish three quarters of an hour.
PASTE FOR PUDDINGS AND PIES.
This is an article which, if the laws of health were obeyed, would be banished from every table, for it unites the three evils of animal fat, cooked animal fat, and heavy bread. Nothing in the whole range of cooking is more indigestible than rich pie crust, especially when, as bottom crust, it is made still worse, by being soaked, or slack baked. ”

“ Line the bottom of a pie tin with crust, being careful to press the crust well down into the tin; then pour on the stewed raisins. Add the lemon juice and the vegetable butter; then cover with a perforated top crust, having the edges wet, so as to stick the crusts together. ”

“ Mix the sugar, flour and salt for each pie in a bowl by itself. When the bottom crust is on the pan, spread about half the sugar mixture over it, put in a generous quantity of apples so that when baked the pie will be level, not depressed, and sprinkle the remainder of the mixture over, taking pains to have a little more at the edges because of not having any underneath there. It is very disappointing to find the last mouthfuls of pie near the crust less sweet than the first from the center. ”

“ If preferred, the pie can be made in a tin mould; but the crust is nicer raised by the hand. A great point to observe is to begin moulding the crust whilst it is hot, and to get it finished as quickly as possible.
VEAL AND HAM PIE.
Prepare the crust as for a pork pie. Cut a pound of veal cutlet and a quarter of a pound of ham into dice, season with a teaspoonful of salt and another of black pepper, put the meat into the crust, and finish as for pork pie. ”

“ However, liquid should be added to the other ingredients until the correct consistency is obtained, regardless of the quantity used. The consistency is not right until the flour and the fat cling together in such a way that the mixture may be rolled out to form the crust for a pie. The less liquid used to accomplish this condition, the flakier will be the crust when it is baked. More skill is required in the handling of pastry when the smallest amount of water that can possibly be used is added, but the results achieved usually justify the care that is taken. ”

“ In case a one-crust pie is to be made, the kind of filling to be used determines whether the crust should be baked first or not. For pies that require comparatively long baking, such as pumpkin pie, for instance, the raw crust is filled with the mixture and the two, crust and mixture, are then baked in the oven together. However, if the filling is one that does not require baking for any length of time, that is, time sufficient to bake the pastry, or if the filling requires a temperature that would be too low to bake the pastry, the crust should be baked first. ”

“ Everybody likes a light crust, a little brown, and not excessively rich, better than one that is half butter or lard, and baked white.
Cherries should not be stewed or stoned for pies. Apples, after they are pared, cut, and cored, should be washed. Steam pumpkin and squash, or stew it with very little water. Meat for pies must not be chopped till after it is cold.
After a little practice and observation, it will be just as well to omit weighing the materials for pastry. One very heaping handful of flour will make a common-sized pie ”

“ The dough to be made the same as pie crust. Two cups of flour, one teaspoon baking powder, a pinch of salt (sift) , butter the size of an egg, one egg, one-half cup powdered sugar, little milk; all of the above beaten together, which will form the dough. One pound pot cheese, one cup of cream, one tablespoon melted butter, one cup granulated sugar, one tablespoon flavor; separate yolks and whites of four eggs, dropping each yolk separately [78] in the ingredients, stirring; beat whites and add last; stir in a little cinnamon and a few currants. ”

“ When juicy fruit is used for filling pies, some of the juices are apt to escape during baking. As a precaution, bind with a strip of cotton cloth wrung out of cold water and cut one inch wide and long enough to encircle the plate. Squash, pumpkin, and custard pies are much less care during baking when bound. Where cooked fruits are used for filling, it is desirable to bake crusts separately. This is best accomplished by covering an inverted deep pie plate with paste and baking for under crust. ”

“ English people usually make their fruit pies with a top-crust only, putting a turned down tea-cup under the centre of the lid to collect the juice, (of course removing the cup when the pie is cut.) It is a good method in a country where the cost of flour is high.
Too much economy in the shortening will infallibly make the crust very poor, hard, heavy, and unwholesome. If you cannot afford dessert paste, do not attempt pies at all; but substitute a plain charlotte, or slices of bread and butter, covered with stewed fruit, sweetened, and laid in a deep dish. ”

“ Many varieties of pies are made with only one crust, and these usually prove more attractive than those having two crusts. As a rule, the filling is a custard or a corn-starch mixture, but often fruits of various kinds, as well as pumpkin and squash, are used in the making of pies of this kind. Frequently, meringue is used as a covering for one-crust pies; or, if an especially delicious dessert is desired, a thick layer of stiffly beaten and sweetened whipped cream is often added to the pie just before serving. ”