23 April, 2009

Unmitigated Kitchen Disaster

I'm sparing your the disgustingness of what this photo could be.  Just look at my overcooked, but nicely crimped crust.  You've got to find something nice about it.  Please?

It snowed again this week.  Rain would have been welcome, but snow that we actually had to shovel?  So not welcome at the end of April.  In an attempt to remind myself of what indeed will return - summer - I pulled out one of the pies I made with the last of last summer's peaches.  The promise of sunshine for breakfast was enough to get me through the snow.  I should have stayed in bed, covers over my head, babies calling to me, and no tea in the pot.

The pie was horrible.  Although I faithfully researched different ways to freeze pies before I even attempted things last August, this was an utter failure.  A lot of information simply said to make the pie as you would, but not to cook it.  A little extra flour or starch in the filling would capture the extra juices you would get when you bake it.  So make your pie, freeze it, then bake it straight from the freezer.  Let me now tell you that this was bad advice, very bad advice. There was so much liquid from the fruit that the top crust effectively poached.  This is not an attractive way to cook a crust.  I even drained out some of the liquid, to no avail.  So my filling was nice, but the pie was both overcooked and undercooked.

I still managed to salvage some semblance of my summer dreams by scooping out the pie filling and eating it with yoghurt, but it wasn't the same.  I guess I'll just have to wait until August.

4 comments:

Roving Lemon said...

What a bummer. I made a fresh peach/sour cherry pie last summer that was so juicy that the bottom crust basically dissolved in the oven. I pretended it was cobbler and ate it anyway. The parts of your crust that are still intact look nice and flaky, though.

foodie suz said...

You are an honest food blogger to post about your disasters as well as successes. This is a good thing.

Very sad, though. My condolences.

Julie said...

Ha! I've never trusted myself to successfully freeze a pie. My sister always does, and it seems to work - go figure.

Anonymous said...

Ah, I not I completely understand the comment you made earlier this week about pie filling. Too bad - I hate it when stuff like that happens in my own kitchen.