Tips for Working With -- Even Latticing! -- Prosthetic Pie Crust (and yes, I mean store-bought)

Yes, my friends, it is time for yet another pie-related post, the last I hope for awhile as I have many other things to do and write, including some remedial adventure blogging.  However, if either of my siblings happens to be reading this, especially after 8:00 p.m., and is likely to suddenly develop an unwanted craving, well, you've been warned.  (As requested, L.)

This post arises because esteemed correspondent Melissa of Sugared Harpy, not just an art history professor but also apparently an enthusiastic pie mistress, mentioned in comments to my geometry post that she had yet to attempt a lattice-top crust.  So this post will not only provide an extremely amateur demonstration (for extremely amateur results), but also some tips for working with store-bought crust in case you, like me, just don't have the skills, patience or equipment to make your own.  For better advice and more professional results, you will have to visit pie god Shuna at Eggbeater or some equally proficient patissier.  People pay her to teach them, and she also makes desserts people pay for.  However, if you do not have time to achieve perfection in this arena just at this moment but do feel ready to maybe try stepping up your presentation a notch, please allow me to give you a little hand up.

The first step for working with a prosthetic (store bought) pie crust is to find one you like, and that may be the hardest part of all.  The staff of America's Test Kitchen on PBS tried a bunch and liked the Whole Foods store brand offering best.  Though it has all natural ingredients and probably won't give you cancer, my true love and I were unimpressed.  We also don't like whole-grain pie crust.  Not at all.  Not for sweet pie.  We like pie crust for dessert (yeah, right; dessert) pies to taste buttery, have a flaky texture, not be too salty, not have a chemical "wang" to them, and not be more important than the filling, just a nice frame for it, or when the pies don't come out with any trace of structural integrity, usually because we can't wait to cut into them and tend to start eating them while they are still warm, the crusts must be good enough not to pick around in a big ol' pile of hot, sweetened, baked fruit with gleaming tapioca beads.

Of all the ones we've tried, this is the one we like best so far, the optimistically brand-named "Oronoque Orchards."

It is loaded with preservatives and other questionable, unnatural, possibly carcinogenic and goodness knows what else kind of ingredients, but it tastes really good to us, not as good as homemade but very good, is available at our extremely local (four small blocks away) conventional grocery store open until 10:00 p.m. most nights, and saves me a ton of effort.  Interestingly, only the "deep dish" (really not deep dish at all; only ever so slightly larger than their regular size crusts, but sold two to a pack instead of three to a pack for almost the same price) taste good to us.  The others, when we tried them, tasted quite disgusting.  Since I remember the ingredients as being pretty much the same, I have no explanation for this.

Once you have found your dream or maybe just only tolerable store-bought pie crust, in order to keep the bottom crust from turning into something gluey and repulsive, you must prepare it.  First preheat your oven to 425°F.  Next, place the pie crust, foil pan and all, into a similarly shaped glass or ceramic pie plate.  You won't really notice why now.  You will notice when the bottom crust has been filled, covered, and especially when the whole pie has been fully baked.  These foil pans, they are flimsy, and liquidy weight such as hot, baked, and potentially extremely messy blueberries does not rest easily within them.  I learned early on in my career as a prosthetic crust user not to trust them, never to trust them.  They are there to make a shape for the bottom of your pie only.

So now that the crust in flimsy foil is nicely braced by a more solid external pan, take a fork and one of the frozen crusts you have on hand and, while the crust is still frozen, poke tiny holes in it, lots of them, in some pattern that pleases you.

Now bake the pierced pie crust, all by itself, for ten minutes. This is what it should look like at the end of that time.

Now cool it slightly, until you can handle the glass or ceramic dish barehanded without hurting yourself.  You may wish to refrigerate it for five or ten minutes, but wait a few minutes before you do that so you don't crack the dish.

If you are making a two-crust pie (as opposed to, say, a pumpkin or other custard or pudding filled pie), before you began preparing the bottom crust, you should take another crust out of the freezer, take it out of its foil pan, and place it on a cutting board.  Let it sit there and defrost while you do all this other stuff, mix the pie filling, etc.  When it is ready to mess with, it will look something like this.

Gently push the crust flat.

Then slice it into sort of even strips about ½" or ¾" wide.

Better cooks than I will all tell you that The Secret to good pie crust -- even prosthetic pie crust -- is keeping it cold, very cold, while you work it.  So after you have made these nice strips, place them on plates and put them in the fridge. 

Do not stress out if some or even all of the strips break while you are handling them, and don't bother trying to repair them.  It won't matter in the end, I promise.

When both crusts have cooled, the bottom crust sufficiently for touching with your bare hands and the top crust strips until at least moderately stiff (about ten minutes in all, during which time you will either have been doing some other part of your weekly cooking, watching TV, loading the dishwasher, playing with the cat(s)/dog(s)/child(ren)/gerbil(s), sorting laundry, or just staring into space, whatever will make you happiest), fill your bottom crust with luscious fruit filling.

Now it is time to begin latticing.  First, grab one of the end pieces and lay it on top of one side of the edge of your pie.  Push its round edge into the hard edge of the pre-toasted bottom crust to form a sort of seal.  Then begin laying other strips across.

Do not worry about whether the strips break.  You are actually going to break them on purpose anyway for at least half of the pie.  Also -- and remember, I'm not a math genius so please cut me some slack if I don't explain this clearly -- you are going to end up using less pie crust than you have.  I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.  You started with enough top crust to more than cover the filled bottom crust.  You are going to make a pattern with the top crust that will leave copious small gaps throughout.  You will have pie crust left over.  Really.

This is because you are going to employ a technique beloved of painters, gravestone carvers and other artists everywhere:  trompe l'oeil.  You are not going to actually weave the strands of crust; you are only going to make it look like you have.  If you actually wove the crust, you would end up with areas where the crust was unpleasantly thick, lots of them; one would happen everywhere the crust strips crossed.  You would also have to be way more careful than we amateur schlubs have time to be.  This way you will end up spending very little effort to make a very pretty, very delicious pie that will impress your friends and family.  (And if it doesn't, I have advice for dealing with that at the end of this post.)

Remember, this exercise is completely optional.  In my experience as a shameless glutton, I have been reminded over and over again that tasty pie which does not have a latticed top is every bit as delicious as tasty pie which does.  You are here following my instructions, not a professional baker's, because you think this might be fun, not because you are trying to get onto Top Chef -- which I stopped watching, incidentally, because when it aired immediately after my brain surgery the first episode of the most recent season gave me highly detailed, all-too-plausible nightmares of which I won't tell you any specifics because I don't want to give the producers ideas.  But I digress.

You and I are not doing this for world acclaim.  You, just as I am, are doing it to achieve this result.

Or this one.

So, back to the faux weaving.  Once you have placed strips across the top of the pie going in one direction -- and don't worry if you use more than half of your total crust volume doing this; you will still end up with extra, honest --

-- break off a little piece of one of the strips.  Eyeball the length to equate to the distance between two strips already placed across the pie + the width of one of these strips + the distance between it and the next.  Lay it across the strip in question.  Break off another piece the same size.  Lay it across not the next strip, but the one after that.

Do you see how this works?  I know this is a really bad photo, but what you are trying to do is make it look (very, very roughly) as though you have woven crust behind every other strip (or across every other strip, depending on how you see), but you are not actually doing so.

It doesn't matter if the short "woven" strips aren't long enough or are too long when you first lay them over the pie.  You can add and subtract at will.  It will not look perfect.  It will not matter.  Your next step, you see, will be to sprinkle sugar -- preferably turbinado sugar for its pretty, pretty sparkliness and lovely mild flavor -- over the whole thing, mostly on the strips of crust because the filling doesn't really need more sweetening, though it's okay if some sugar falls into the gaps.

Now you bake it, et voilà.

Yes, it is "flawed," not rigidly orthogonal or perfectly evenly spaced.  But it's what I call perfectly imperfect.  Tell me you wouldn't eat this or that any of your family or friends are going to refuse it or criticize you for any visual "flaws."  If they do, IMO, you must school the former and/or drop the latter, because they are ungrateful wretches.  Oh, and you should eat the whole thing yourself, too, just to drive home the point.

Comments

[JadeWolf]

Wow. That's dedication. Should I should assume that you tried the Pillsbury pie crusts that come rolled up in a long box rather than pre-pie-dished, and did not like them? I use them all the time, they have exactly one preservative, and it makes latticing a pie waaaay easier to start with a flat round of crust.

[Sara]

You know, we never did try the Pillsbury offering. America's Test Kitchen -- and given our experience with the one they liked, maybe we should have ignored them -- said it was the absolutely worst of all the prosthetic pie crusts they tried, and the last Pillsbury product that somehow made its way into my oven (yeah, yeah; insert jokes here) was so completely unpalatable that we gave the pie crust a miss. However, on your recommendation, I will look for it and try it.

Meanwhile, yes, I realize that breaking out all the instructions like this could make it look far more complicated than it is to make a lattice-top crust, but I swear it's not. To make an entire fruit pie this way, fresh filling from scratch, fancy-fied store-bought crust and all, it's maybe ten minutes of actual labor, mindless labor that can be performed sitting down, and then just a matter of timing and waiting, waiting which can be accomplished during time filled with other things.

Also, I make maybe 10 pies a year, and it just happens that this year I've made two with latticed tops. It's not an everyday thing, and it's also not really essential to any recipe. It is fun, though. And pretty, even if your results resemble a third-grader's, like mine.

The essential parts of pie baking are, of course, love, that it should be fun (which it can't be without love), and that the results should be devourable. :)

[Sugared Harpy]

THANK YOU!

I never attempted it because I thought there was actual weaving involved. And right, who has the time or inclination for that nonsense. You have saved me from a life of non-latticed pies! Thank you!!

I will share with you, that making one's own pie crust is not overly time consuming. It works best with the impatient, since you should barely touch the thing.

[Sugared Harpy]

By the way, "chemical wang" is the best phrase I have ever come upon.

Ever.

[Sara]

And you KNOW what I'm talking about, don't you? And it isn't pretty.

You are absolutely right that homemade is the best, and that Julia Child was the definitive good fairy of the kitchen, and that for most people with enough space and equipment it should not be at all difficult, but that space and equipment thing, that is a kicker. Yes, I know for a fact that at least one of my foremothers must have made adequate pie crust from scratch with her bare hands and maybe a wooden spoon in a closet of some tenement using rancid rat lard and wormy potato flour, and I'm sure her family ate it and was grateful, but I have that whore Little Debbie and her cheap dance Hostess cousin to compete with.

The store-bought pie crust my true love and I have settled for is a compromise between his tastes, needs, and desires and mine. He -- who was raised by a foreign woman who did not bake and thus never taught him not to put Little Debbie in his mouth -- is grateful not to have to eat more of my mother's super easy but honestly kind of execrable pie crust recipe (2 C flour, ¼ C milk, 2/3 C vegetable oil), and I am grateful to have found something he will eat and enjoy without my having to cut frozen butter into tiny pieces with two knives or a hand-held mixer and keep refreezing it every time it gets soft enough to actually blend or form, all on a counter top about a foot-and-a-half wide if I cleaned that day, because if it's not store-bought, it has to be exquisite and perfect; that's just how he rolls.

It is supposed to be fun. It is not supposed to be stressful. So now I cheat, openly though not particularly proudly. We both honestly enjoy the results, though. Perhaps it's even better because we -- or at least I -- know it's slightly wrong.

If I ever live somewhere with a big enough kitchen for a grown-up mixer and a serious-size dough-rolling platform of some kind (like, hello, even a kitchen table?), perhaps I can go back to walking in the light. Meanwhile, it's back to the freezer section of my local grocer for me.

But as for latticing, no matter what the medium, it really is easy as, well, pie. ;) And esteemed correspondent Ron Sullivan even revealed in comments to a prior post that her husband Joe, whom she has affectionately nicknamed "Lord of the Pies," also fake-weaves. So yay! Go for it! I'm sure it will be beautiful as well as delicious, and that you with your already advanced crust skills won't even break a sweat. :)

[aura carmi]

While we are all talking about pies and crusts, I thought that I would mention our family tradition. I freeze several pies,made with the fresh fruit from my orchard. Then, in the winter, when everyone is good and sick of pumpkin and citrus and apples, we have peach/nectarine/apricot pie. Of course it is not as good as when the fruit is fresh, but it is PRETTY TREMENDOUS!!!

To do this, simply assemble the pie and then freeze immediately. When you are ready to bake, DO NOT THAW!!!Place in a preheated 425 degree oven for about 30 minutes until you can pierce holes in the crust. After you have made the holes, turn the heat down to 350 and cook for 1-1 1/2 hours.

Finally, I like whole grain crusts. I use whole wheat pastry for the flour and coconut oil in lieu of butter or oil. We really love it hope you will too.

[Sara]

Alas, my friend. We will never, never, never, never like whole grain crust. Never. (Or whole grain pasta; sorry; we just don't.) I'm sure yours is better than most, but we still wouldn't like it. For a "dessert" crust (and I use the quotations because it is also sometimes a breakfast crust, a snack crust, oh hell, maybe even a lunch or dinner crust because, c'mon, it's pie), we want it to be so refined that it has no nutritional value whatsoever, just sweet, buttery flavor, light and flakey/crumbly texture and a minimum of structure. Sorry.

The frozen pie idea, though, that is brilliant. :) See? You are the Queen of Planned Cooking.

[Ron Sullivan]

Wow. I shall pass your dessertation along to Beelzebubba, Lord of the Pies, because he does like to have Plans B, C, and Q in the file, just in case.

I'll also ask him about that peanut-butter pie, though I can't recall that he's ever stepped foot in a Marie Callender's. Lois the Pie Queen's place, gods rest her, now that's another matter. I think we need to go there again to see if they've kept up the quality.

Also: Duarte's in Pescadero (just had pie there a couple weeks ago, in fact) and good lord, when's the last time we were in either Fatapple's? And that place on Solano Avenue where they serve meatloaf and such but the pie's better.

And there's no place like home. (click, click, click)

[aura carmi]

Well, through all of this pie talk, I just had to have one. Not a kiddie pie, an adult pie with just enough cognac in it. (The kids won't eat anything cooked in wine or spirits. Ziv, my little 7 year old gourmand would, but Meital, my 10 year old fuddy duddy convinces him every time that it tastes bad.)

I also noticed something very interesting reading your posts and looking at the pics... I saw that you are thickening with whole tapioca pearls, (or whatever they are called) and not tapioca flour or flour or cornstarch.

At first I didn't really believe it was possible, but then in one of your posts when you commented on "tapioca jewels" or something like that, I knew it was true. I HAD TO TRY IT!

So, afraid that I would end up with tooth breaking little rocks in my pie, with enormous trepidation, I stirred them into the precious last bits of this year's stone fruits. (The trees are almost finished and I knew that this would be the last pie for the year.

WHOA!!! THIS PIE WAS ABSOLUTE NIRVANA!!!!! Those little "tapioca jewels" are just the greatest thing around. Since I have never had them in anything but tapioca pudding, I was astounded. And, by the way, great with a whole wheat crust :) :) :)

[jeanne]

Sara--I LOVE your term for store-bought crust_ prosthetic crust. I'm going to borrow that.

I was just having a conversation about pie crust with a good friend of mine and was trying to explain this to her--but you've done it for me! I'm sending her the link, and then maybe I will head out to the park to pick some blackberries and make a pie for my loved ones.

Jeanne