Better the next time around

As the internship at America’s Test Kitchen moves on, I’ve been more and more involved with pies, which is a joy. I seem to be enjoying baking more than cooking. The payoff waits until after dinner, the last taste before going to bed. Dessert is something to look forward to. What a sweet pull to have. And this week I had my share of sugary assignments: pecan pie, a bittersweet chocolate cake that was a component of a larger cake, and a sour cherry pie, which I had help on with the lattice top. I learned that rolling out pie dough satisfactorily can take successive tries (I’ll get to this in a bit),  to thoroughly read through the ingredient amounts and steps, that I can tolerate pecan pie and that butter, shortening and, yes, vodka, is the way to go for a pie crust.

Pie dough is finicky. If it’s too warm, it will stick to the rolling pin like goop and form a homogenous mass that tears into pieces when transferring into a pie plate. This happened with both the pecan and sour cherry pie doughs on the first attempt. I patched both doughs back together like pieces from a puzzle. I baked two pecan pies (one using that dough and another with a dough made after I threw one dough out after putting way too much water in). This is what I mean by reading through a recipe. The recipe calls for one egg white mixed with about 2 tablespoons water to equal a quarter cup. I added a quarter cup of water to the egg white, so the measurement exceeded the requirement. The dough sat in a shallow pool of murky water in the mixing bowl. Yuk! I had better results with the next dough. The dough was firm, yet flexible enough to roll, stayed together for the most part during rolling and transferring to the pie plate, and allowed for crimping the edges. All in all, it required less hands-on work, which is key for a tender dough. From what I’ve read, working a dough too much results in a tough dough.

The cherry pie dough was moist and sticky, and when I tried transferring the dough into the pie plate, it fell in glops. A test cook felt the dough and told me to make another batch. So with flour and the remaining dry ingredients, butter, vegetable shortening and vodka, I went to work. Again, I didn’t follow directions. The recipe instructs you to pulse the flour in two additions – once at the beginning and again after the butter and shortening go in. Well, I added all the flour in the beginning. Some butter and shortening stuck where the bottom and sides of the food processor bowl meet. I dumped the mixture into a bowl, sprinkled and folded the vodka into the dough with a rubber spatula, trying not to disturb the mixture too much. I repeated the process with water. After some time chilling, the dough was ready to roll and, like the last pecan pie dough, cooperated. Half-inch white shortening pieces looked like white stones in a beige floor or countertop, only this being dough. I eased the dough onto the rolling pin, and let it fall into the pie plate like a tablecloth. It chilled in the freezer, then received the cherry filling, a lattice top, a brush with egg white and a sprinkle of granulated sugar.

For taste, the cherry filling was still to tart – I prefer a sweeter filling.. The crust was excellent – salty, crumbly and still crunchy from the sugar grains spinkled on top. As for pecan pie, I had a tiny sample of the filling and it wasn’t too sweet. Pecan pie usually equals an overly sweet filing with too much nuts. But I could tolerate this bite. And I could sure tolerate, even anticipate, the next pie baking assignment.