Pie oh pie!!...

The long awaited Pies session!...I think I have been looking forward to this class more than the students; I love a well made, not very sweet, flaky, crispy, crunchy, texturally and visually sexy pie!  Probably because pies are not really very popular here in Trinidad and the American marketing during special occasions just always had my attention. Seeing these gorgeous pies would always engage my sweet tooth, so much that I would have to satisfy it with a slice of cake or whatever was available.

 Interestingly enough, and as my students realized and mentioned, pies are really fairly simple and straight forward to make. Basically a pie is more or less a shell, baked or unbaked, and a filling; with either a topping or a top crust, both of which can be manipulated to double as a garnish for presentation. As I told my students, "Don't worry, this is going to be easy as pie!" :)

So we made a couple different pies, and even included a tart from the previous session to show the differences between pies and tarts. Basically a pie is made in a dish with sloped sides and can have either a single crust [bottom] or a double crust [top and bottom]; tarts are made in a dish with straighter sides and filled with pastry cream then topped with fruits or vegetables accordingly. Variations may be present but that's it in a 'pieshell'.

I failed to mention in previous posts that all the recipes for the items mentioned can be found in the Professional Baking 4th Edition by Wayne Gisslen, published by John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Now....would you care for a slice?...

This is a pre-baked pie shell that was baked 'blind'- where we used a fork and made holes in the base to prevent it from puffing up during baking, a technique called 'docking', and we placed a piece of grease proof paper [or parchment paper can be used] in it and filled it with rice to act as a weight to help prevent puffing also. These would be used with fillings that do not require baking like puddings and what we used it for- Banana Cream Pie!! my all time favourite..:)))

Unbaked Apple pie showing the enticing traditional lattice work as a top crust..

And then we baked it!...gorgeous!!

Pecan Pie...this was exceptional...commonly a bit overly sweet but we made adjustments before hand so it was right on point!..a spoon of whipped cream over a slice and my gosh...bliss!.. 

Traditional Pumpkin Pie...not the most popular in the class because "pumpkin is for choka"

mouth watering!....

Here's a Lemon Chiffon Pie garnished with a simple shake of lemon zest...to the back-right is the Banana Cream pie without the whipped topping.

This gem is a Strawberry Tart with an Apricot glaze..we used a Pate Sucree dough which is a sweet pastry dough as the crust, filled it with vanilla pastry cream and topped it with fresh, sliced strawberries then brushed the apricot glaze over top to give it shine. This was simply excellent!!! 

Miniature morsels of goodness...Strawberry Tartlets...smaller versions of our Strawberry Tart and just as heavenly!

Which would you try??...