On Friday my husband came home with a load of fresh cherries that someone gave him. There were three different kinds. So, my son, the expert baker, decided to make a pie. The rest of the cherries he pitted and froze. He froze them laid out on a tray and then put them in bags. When you eat one, it's just like eating ice cream!
Anyway, while he was cooking the filling, I came over to peek in the pot and was fascinated by the wonderful color! Here's with a flash and without.
While it was baking, it was boiling over.
After taking it out I figured out why. The center of the crust rose and pushed out some of the filling. Here's a top view and a bottom view.
We were both stumped as to what happened. If any of my readers knows why that would happen to a pie, we'd love to know!
Enjoy!
Debbie
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You need to poke holes with a fork in the bottom of the crust before putting the filling in to release air.
ReplyDeleteYou probably should have used a pie weight...
ReplyDeleteMaybe baked the crust first - after pricking it with a fork.
Like Calico Cat said, you needed to use a pre-baked crust. The easiest way to do it is to load up the row empty crust with beans. Bake, discard the beans (or save them for another pie baking occasion). Then fill and bake with filling. Cherry filling bakes very fast. By the way, I love freezing cherries and eating them frozen. When we lived in upstate N.Y. I would put away boxes of the in my huge chest freezer. And dried lots of them too.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with Calico Cat, pre-baking and holes poked with a fork will fix that little problem right up!
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of the above, but would like to add that the cherries do not need to be cooked before baking. Same as with an apple pie--no need to cook the apples first.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell from your post or from the pictures if there was a top crust, but a cherry pie generally should be made with one. If you use a top crust, the bottom crust doesn't need to be pre-baked, but pricking can't hurt it. And the top crust always needs to be pricked to let out the steam and excess juice.
Judging by the pictures, I think there was probably too much liquid in with the cherries--not precooking would avoid that problem.
No matter what kind of pie I make, I always set the pie pan on a cookie sheet covered with baking parchment, to catch any drips. Setting a piece of foil on the floor of the oven can make problems with your oven temperature and should be avoided.
I'll bet your son's pie tasted good anyway, no matter what happened to it!
Oh yes, I forgot to add--it's important to put some kind of thickener in a fruit pie. Either flour, cornstarch, or tapioca works. Helps the whole thing to hold together properly and develop a nice thick syrup.
ReplyDeleteI am totally impressed that your pitted all those cherries. How did he do it? Do you have a cherry pitter? Without a cherry pitter I just cut the cherries in half to get the pit out.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone...for a one crust pie I would pre bake it. Susan's idea of using two crusts and a thickener would have helped. In any case, it looks delicious!
Susan really knows her stuff. thanx for the lesson.
ReplyDeleteComments on the comments: Thanks everyone for all the great advice! My son has a baggie with beans that he's been using for years in pie baking. For all I know, he did use them this time, while I wasn't in the kitchen. He also may have pricked the crust on the bottom. I really wasn't paying attention the whole time.
ReplyDeleteHe often cooks the filling. I think he likes them soft and gooey! He did use thickener (corn starch) and it did thicken to a syrup when finished baking. It went over because there wasn't enough room for all the filling when the bottom started rising!
I'll tell him next time to use your advice. He says he thinks it's because he used a dough recipe with baking powder and I think he said that somehow the baking powder reacted incorrectly. He tried explaining the physics of it, but that was too much for me.
Miri asked about pitting. He pits them really fast. Sticks a skewer in and pushes out each pit one after the other. When I took the picture of the cherries on the tray, they were already pitted and frozen.
My grandmother use to cut slit in the crust to so the steam could get out and the pie juice wouldn't boil out all over the pie.
ReplyDelete