Victory!

Look! Pie! I made it myself, with supervision of course. After reading about my lamentable inability to make pie pastry, a friend offered to teach me. She came over on Friday night and we made pie, drank martinis and played on the Wii. I had my doubts about the outcome of this lesson, particularly when the pie took forever to bake. We were using frozen sliced apples, and I had forgotten to defrost them in advance. I am proud to report that in spite of the delay there were no tantrums on my part. Might have had something to do with the martinis.

The apples kind of melded together to make caramelly, custardy filling similar to a pecan pie, but the crust stayed intact. If you look closely, you can even see the bottom crust in the picture. I’m not sure if you would call it “flaky”, but it was tender enough to cut with a fork, and it didn’t require chiselling to liberate a slice from the pan. A huge improvement over pies I have made in the past. I’m quite pleased with the results, particularly since the lesson has left me with enough pastry in the freezer for three more single-crust pies. We didn’t attempt a double-crust pie. That seemed too ambitious. I hope I can remember all I learned the next time I attempt to make pie pastry.

(Note: The apples we used in the pie were from the same friend's tree. She had given me an enormous box of apples in the fall. I made some into applesauce, which I then froze. Yummy on oatmeal in the morning. The rest I sliced, tossed with a bit of lemon juice, and froze. I didn't know what I was going to do with them at the time. I never would have guessed that they would end up in a pie.)