This week in baking class we covered Pies and Strudel.

A pie is usually made of a pastry crust that holds a filling. The filling can be made with many different ingredients, from sweet to savory, from fruit to meat, cheese or even fish. The filling is placed on top of a bottom crust. An additional crust can cover the top of the pie, as a solid piece or a cutout design with openings.

A strudel is a layered pastry, like phyllo dough, with a sweet filling. Often they are served with confectioners sugar and cream.

We discussed these different pie dough methods:

The dough making process consists of:

Pies require the dough to be cooked in different manners. Some require raw dough with small poked holes on the bottom crust. This prevents the dough from bubbling up when it’s cooked. The holes are not necessary for pies who’s fillings are heavy enough to hold the dough down as its being baked. Other pies require the crust is partially baked or fully baked. This is usually done in order to keep the bottom crust from becoming soggy or undercooked from a moist filling. Juicy filling will need to have a thickening agent (cornstarch, flour, tapioca) added before cooking so that the bottom crust will cook and not be soggy.

When doing para (partial) baked crust or fully baked crust a method called Blind Baking is sometimes used. With blind baking, rather than punching holes in the bottom crust before baking the crust is filled with weights (beans, rice or even small metal balls) that fills the pie pan and holds down the dough. Its called blind baking because you can not see the baking process of the crust. The weights are removed at 1/2 through the baking time (for both para and fully baked).

When a top crust or lattice is used several different techniques need to be used. For a top crust, the pie must have slats or holes cut in it to allow steam to leave the pie as it bakes. When doing a lattice, which is a common way of baking apple pies, or top crust, the filling should be cooked or partially cooked in order to shrink the filling to the same volume as its finished product. This is so the lattice or top crust does not dome and create an air pocket that crumbles when the pie is cut.

Its a good idea to cook your pie on a baking sheet so that any spillage during the baking process does not drip into the oven. A glass pie pan enables one to see if the crust is done on the bottom – however, a metal pan will brown the crust, a glass one will not brown the crust.

Heres what we made today:

Apple Pie

Key Lime Pie

Pear-Cranberry Strudel

Sweet-Potato-Pecan Pie