Thread: Humbled By Pie

Humbled By Pie

I could bake a pie; I had the technology. Well I had the apples. I was all prepared to create a masterpiece of delicious delectability. With Fanny Farmer in hand, and having just watched Alton Brown create a pie crust with amazing ease, I was ready. I had not made a pie since my son was in diapers, but I was sure of my abilities. After all, I am sought out for my baking prowess during the holidays. My specialty is cream wafers with a cream cheese or chocolate truffle filling.
I peeled the Granny Smiths and sliced them. I had barely enough sugar so I opened up the shaker of cinnamon sugar I keep for toast and tossed that in. A little nutmeg and mixed it up well. A squirt of honey just to be sure of the sweetness.
The recipe for pastry was easy enough; I even took the advice of Alton and threw it in a zip lock bag to rest in the refrigerator while I searched out an appropriate baking vessel. If I once had a pie pan it is long gone. I decided I would roll out the dough big enough to pull the over the top of the apples and use my versatile pizza pan. I got the pizza pan in the divorce. My brother-in-law had once managed a pizza shop and had given us the pan. I call it my multi-task pan. It has seen more fries than pizzas.
I tried to pick up the crust from the board I had rolled it out on. It would not stay together so I used the trick I had seen on many a baking show and attempted to roll the dough over the rolling pin then unroll it out in the pan. The dough had another idea and broke in half on each side of the rolling pin. I picked up the halves and put them in the pan, ignoring the chunks falling from the edges and landing on the cat’s head.
It was time for the apples. I never bothered with all that nonsense of corn starch in my fillings. If the pioneer women could make a pie without goo then so could I. I should have used a slotted spoon because the apples were more juicy than they looked; my pastry was soon soaked with apple filling juice. I don’t give up easily because I am pretty darn stubborn and no food is a match for me. I figured the soggy dough would dry out in the oven. Again, the dough had its own idea when I attempted the fold it over the top of the apples. It tore right down the middle, underneath the pie. I realized the pizza pan was a bad idea.
My trusty cast iron skillet was the right size. I would lift the pie and place it in that. It had served me well over the years with my peach cobblers and I trusted it for pie. The pie did not share my feelings and began to fall apart every time I tried to lift it. I used my biggest spatula, shoved it under the pie, then lifted it up. I had a spatula full of pie. Looking up at my daughter, who had been watching me the entire time, I smiled and chopped the hell out of the apples, dough and my frustration. I scooped the entire mess into the skillet. My pie was miraculously transformed into a cobbler or rather a facsimile of one.
While the apple piebbler thing baked I pondered what had gone wrong. I suddenly remembered my pastry recipe that was fail proof. Even my mom, whose pie dough could be used for bullet proof vests, could make a crust that was flaky using the recipe.
Still, it didn’t change the fact the pizza pan was a stupid move. I made a mental note to buy pie pans the next time I went shopping and spindled it onto my sharp memory, along with others I had stored in my brain. I’ve had a note to buy cookie cutters there for about ten years and one day I will buy them, maybe.
After an hour the timer buzzed and I pulled the apple piebbler from the oven. My son actually left his Counter Strike computer game and stood, with plate in hand, waiting to be served. It smelled good even if it didn’t look that way. My daughter looked at it skeptically before getting a plate. My son was in the kitchen getting seconds before I had my first bite. I wished for vanilla ice cream and wondered what yogurt would make my piebbler taste like. The yogurt remained in its container.
I’ll try making pie again someday. With Thanksgiving around the corner I’ll need pumpkin pie. Thank God for Mrs. Smith.