While pies come in all flavors and designs to satisfy your different moods, cracking that perfect consistency might be a challenge. Here are 5 easy pie recipes to help you deal with those beginner’s jitters.
Baking a pie is a meditative process. So is eating it! Their flaky crusts and delicious fillings oozing out of every crumb make them a classic comfort food for many. They’re so well-loved that pies make for a great starting point for one’s baking. While cracking the perfect consistency and texture is largely dependent on how much practice one gets, baking a pie from scratch is often easier than one would think. Here’s a basic breakdown of how to bake a pie:
Make a dough using flour, salt and butter. Knead it together with water until it’s nice and stable. Divide it into two pieces, covering both in plastic and placing them in the refrigerator. In the meantime, combine the other ingredients—like the fruit or your hero ingredient, cinnamon and other flavors and baking essentials like vanilla essence and sugar—to make the filling. Prepareany other elements if required.
At this point, you want to start preheating the oven. On a flat surface, sprinkle some flour and then roll out the dough. Place it carefully on a pie plate, trimming any excess edges or folding the dough down. Add the filling to the crust, then bring out the second piece of dough that’s been resting on the side. Roll it out and cut roughly 1-inch long strips from it. Place a few strips in one direction, and then add other strips in a perpendicular direction to essentially weave them together. You can also place the top covering in a variety of different shapes and styles— perhaps just a few circles of dough placed artistically on the pie, or in some other design.
Bake the pie for approximately 20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Bring it out and let it cool before slicing.
What makes a pie unique is the filling that goes in between the two layers of dough. There’s a multitude of recipes one can experiment with, but here are 5 easy pie recipes for beginners: