The nice thing about writing a blog is you can refer back to your old posts.
Today I'm baking another cherry pie for David's birthday dinner. I don't bake pies often ─ in fact, it's been two years. Lucky for me, my recipe and tips were all archived in one handy post, complete with my friend Kimmer's advice for preventing sogginess in the bottom crust.
Today's pie-baking attempt was a big success, since I finally figured out how to keep the crust edges from burning. I own a couple of different kinds of pie shields, but it seemed they always weighed down the fluted edge. The aluminum one also seemed to make the browning worse, since it never fit my pans correctly and directed more heat to the edge.
While mulling this problem it occurred to me to use an old sheet of foil with a smaller hole cut in the middle, and place it flat on the pie.
I've read before to use foil around the edge, but had always cut it into strips and tried to wrap the fluted edges, which never worked. Maybe this is what I was supposed to do in the first place!
It worked beautifully. I removed it the last 15 minutes and brushed on an egg white that was beaten with a little lemon juice, then sprinkled a tiny bit of sugar around the edges and on the middle, just enough to add a little sparkle.
From now on, this will be my go-to method for pie crusts. And should it be a few more years before I bake a pie again, I'll have this blog post to refer to.
David's Birthday Menu
Bacon Bloody Marys and Bell's Oberon Ale
Lava (chopped jalapeno peppers, green olives and olive oil) with a bread baguette, pistachios
Strawberry-feta salad with strawberry-balsamic reduction
Hazelnut crusted salmon with wild rice pilaf
Carrots with lemon and walnuts
Cherry pie and vanilla ice cream
Today I'm baking another cherry pie for David's birthday dinner. I don't bake pies often ─ in fact, it's been two years. Lucky for me, my recipe and tips were all archived in one handy post, complete with my friend Kimmer's advice for preventing sogginess in the bottom crust.
Today's pie-baking attempt was a big success, since I finally figured out how to keep the crust edges from burning. I own a couple of different kinds of pie shields, but it seemed they always weighed down the fluted edge. The aluminum one also seemed to make the browning worse, since it never fit my pans correctly and directed more heat to the edge.
While mulling this problem it occurred to me to use an old sheet of foil with a smaller hole cut in the middle, and place it flat on the pie.
I've read before to use foil around the edge, but had always cut it into strips and tried to wrap the fluted edges, which never worked. Maybe this is what I was supposed to do in the first place!
It worked beautifully. I removed it the last 15 minutes and brushed on an egg white that was beaten with a little lemon juice, then sprinkled a tiny bit of sugar around the edges and on the middle, just enough to add a little sparkle.
From now on, this will be my go-to method for pie crusts. And should it be a few more years before I bake a pie again, I'll have this blog post to refer to.
David's Birthday Menu
Bacon Bloody Marys and Bell's Oberon Ale
Lava (chopped jalapeno peppers, green olives and olive oil) with a bread baguette, pistachios
Strawberry-feta salad with strawberry-balsamic reduction
Hazelnut crusted salmon with wild rice pilaf
Carrots with lemon and walnuts
Cherry pie and vanilla ice cream
