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Pies & Tarts
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This Page:
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| Pies and
tarts are sometimes called
pastry,
which generally refers to two types of baking recipes. Pastry may refer to a
high-fat breakfast roll or a "container" for pie or tarts, called a crust.
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 When
making pie crusts,
be quick and keep the
ingredients well-chilled.
Handle it as little as possible. Try
to use your fingertips instead of your hands which are too warm for the
dough.
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Here, I will show you how to make
your own pies and tarts with
step-by-step instructions.
They can be made as
single or double with or
without a lattice top, with
a needs-to-be-baked filling in a pie plate.
It can also be free-form, filled and then baked on a cookie sheet.
Additionally, a pre-baked pie crust can be filled with a pre-cooked filling.
P.S. Sounds easy, huh ?! Well, I'll
be honest, it's not. Making a pie and tart crust takes knowledge, practice,
patience and cold ingredients. It is a balancing act, as well.
If you get stuck, you can always
Ask (Me) Sarah
questions along the
way. If you
don't want to make your own, there are also some good ones already made in the
freezer section of the grocery store (I prefer the all-natural kind).
A. Pies Versus
Tarts:
PIES:
 A
pie is American in design and can be both
sweet or savory and is served directly from its pan. Most pies are usually baked
with a layer of pastry dough
or other crust doughs and mixtures,
lining a regular 9-inch or a deep-dish 8-inch round pie pan, both with sloping
sides.
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 Weeping
Pies: Have you ever found water in the
bottom of your Lemon Meringue Pie or others ?
For an explanation of what causes it with a
solution,
click here. |
A pie crust can be baked without a filling called
"blind baking" and
filled later with a cooked
filling. Or, the filling may be baked with a
whole top crust,
sometimes lattice in
design, or with a crumb top.
A pie is usually filled with fruits, such as in the
Peach Pie Recipe, or berries, as in
the Fresh Cherry Pie Recipe, but can
also be filled with creamy custard-like fillings, such as the
Custard or
Pumpkin Pie Recipes or nuts
as in the Pecan Pie Recipe.
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FOR FUN! Shoofly
Pie: thought to be of Pennsylvania Dutch origin, the extremely
sweet filling of a shoofly pie is a mixture of molasses, brown sugar, water
and butter. There are several different stories concerning the origin of the
pie's name. One is that it's so sweet that one must shoo away the flies;
another declares that the pie was originally made to attract flies away from
other foods. |
When baked, a typical homemade
double-crust pie should have a blistery, pebbled surface that promises flakiness.
It should be baked to a golden brown perfection,
with a slightly, darker brown around its edges. It should be rolled
fairly thin (1/8-inch) so that the entire crust will be crisp and fragile and
easily cut with a fork, flaky and tender but at the same
time not too crumbly.
| Pies and tarts are only
supposed to look perfect in pictures,
not at home |
 TARTS:
A tart, on the other hand, is a European
open-faced cousin of the pie. Tarts seem to be more refined than pies, which are
homier in nature. The Strawberry
Tart with Pastry Cream is one of my favorites.
Tarts are usually baked in a 9- or 10-inch
straight, short-sided pan with a removable bottom and fluted edges, the pan
being half the depth of a pie pan. They are also baked in a pastry ring placed
on a parchment lined baking sheet.
 If
you drop your pie or tart on the floor (which I have done myself), don't
despair. Serve it anyway. Assuming the floor is clean, portion it
equally among parfait glasses or small bowls and top with whipped cream or
ice cream. No one will ever know !! |
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COBBLERS, TARTS & PIES: A
cobbler is a fruit dessert
baked in a deep dish or baking dish that has a topping sprinkled on before
baking. A tart is made with a crust formed in a tart pan or a low,
straight-walled pan with a removable bottom. A pie, similar to a tart, is
baked in a pie pan that has sloping sides. Both a tart and a pie can have
the crust prebaked and filled or baked with fruits, custards or chocolate. |
Tarts are made with a bottom, and with sometimes
a whole top or lattice
one, each made from a buttery,
flaky dough or a crumb crust.
The bottom crust provides a perfect foundation for fruit and custard fillings
and even with chocolate. Many of the same fillings used in pies are used in
tarts, however rich fillings are more practical in a low tart shell than in a
deep pie one. Bottom crusts can include a crumbly, delicate and
cookie-like crust with added
ground nuts, cocoa and spices, or can include a
flaky puff pastry crust.
Tarts can be made big enough to serve a party
but, can also be baked as small tarts (3-1/2 to 4-inches in diameter), miniature
tartlets (about 2 to 2-1/2-inches in diameter) and miniature barquettes (about
3-inches long and about an 1-inch wide at the middle). All tarts end up being
free-standing because after baking, they are taken out of the pan and put on a
platter for serving, as the pan's removable bottom helps to facilitate this.
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B. Types -
Pies & Tarts are Grouped Together According
To Their Fillings: |
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FRUIT PIES & TARTS:
Fillings are made from cooked or uncooked fresh
or dried fruit. They are assembled in an unbaked bottom crust, with or
without a top crust made from a pastry dough,
crumb mixture or Phyllo dough. They
can also be free form and are then called a Galette.
Crust(s) and fillings bake together. |
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CREAM PIES & TARTS:
The filling is pre-made from a custard
or mousse, spread in a previously
baked pastry or crumb crust. |
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ICEBOX PIES &
TARTS: An icebox pie is sort of
like a cream pie, but it is made from a gelatin-like filling poured into a
pre-baked crust and then refrigerated to set the filling. |
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CUSTARD PIES & TARTS:
The filling is uncooked custard poured over an
unbaked bottom crust, without a top one. Both are baked together. |
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NUT PIES & TARTS:
The filling is a sugar-based mixture added to eggs and butter, poured over
nutmeats in an unbaked bottom crust, with no top on. Both bake together. |
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SAVORY PIES & TARTS:
Main course or appetizer pies with savory rather than sweet fillings. |
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DEEP DISH PIES:
Fruit pies with a top crust only, made either of
pastry or baking powder biscuit dough. It is baked in a deep dish pie pan or
casserole dish. |
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COBBLERS, CRISPS, BUCKLES, GRUNTS, BROWN BETTYS &
SLUMPS: First cousins of pies, a
cobbler is a deep dish (casserole or soufflé dish) fruit pie (peach is most
common) with only a top biscuit dough crust. Fruit cobblers can be made with
almost any fruit, singly or in combination. |
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GALETTES:
seem to be an all-purpose French word for an imperfect pie,
which we call free-form pies that are easy to make. The dough is rolled out
directly on a flat cookie sheet (without rims) and then, the filling
(usually fruit, never custard) is spread over the dough, leaving a 2-inch
border. The border is folded in to cover the outside portion of the filling,
all the way around the galette. The folds are then adjusted to look like
sharply defined pleats, while the filling shows through the middle. |
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C. Pastry Dough:
(Ingredients)
Pastry dough can be
either flaky or sweet for pies and
for tarts. A pie and tart crust can be made from crumbs which you
"pat-in-the-pan", such as a
Graham Cracker Crust or even one
made with ground nuts.
In addition, a crust can be made from Puff pastry
dough or even Phyllo dough.
Pie dough or flaky pastry is the standard
American dough for pies and tarts. It can be made with butter, vegetable
shortening or lard, but most often a combination of butter and shortening is
used. Whatever fat is used, it is rubbed or cut into the flour and then
moistened with water to form the dough. Salt is either dissolved in the water or
added to the flour at the start. The more finely the fat is rubbed in, the less
flaky and more mealy the baked dough will be.
There are a
couple of basic crust types used with pies and tarts:
1.
Flaky & Basic Crust Recipe (Pâte
Brisée) is probably the
most useful of all dough. It can not only be used for pies and tarts, but for
quiche and more savory fillings.
It is made with butter or fat and the liquid used
can be water, water and egg or all egg. When well made,
the pastry is flaky.
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A
pie crust made with cookie crumbs will sometimes stick to the pan when the
pie is chilled. A quick remedy is to soak a dishtowel in very hot
water, wring it out, and wrap it around the base of the pie plate for 5
minutes. The heat will soften the butter in the crust thereby loosening it
for easy removal. |
2.
Sweet Pie and Tart Crust Recipe
(Pâte Sucrée) is
made in a similar way to the flaky pie crust, with
the addition of sugar and sometimes baking powder making them more cookie-like
in texture, best paired with
sweet fillings. It is often used for small tarts where the
filling is baked directly in the raw dough. Perfect
for beginners, pastry recipes containing sugar can be handled less gingerly than
a traditional crust because sugar tenderizes the dough. But, dough made with
sugar are softer than than the basic flaky one, so I have included special
instructions.
3.
Cookie Tart Crust ,
or pâte sablé, is a delicate dough that is usually made by beating
the fat with sugar, then mixing in eggs, with the flour (often cake flour) added
at the end. This dough is usually baked blind and then filled after it has
cooled.
4. Other
crusts include:
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D. Pan Selections
(for more) |
For
pie baking,
I prefer to use Pyrex or glass, heat-resistant pie pans; glass conducts heat
evenly which allows the bottom crust of the pie to bake thoroughly. Other
good choices are dark metal or ceramic ones because they also conduct the
heat well, however faster than shiny pans. The drawback with them is that
you can't see whether or not the pie's bottom has sufficiently baked as you
can with glass pans. Don't use thin, aluminum pans because they
hot-spot.
For tarts, I
prefer the tin-plated metal pans, instead of the black steel ones, but
either one is fine. Both are readily
available
in grocery and cookware shops. The tin-plated ones are easier to maintain
and do not rust. Make sure the tart pan has a removable bottom. |
E. Fillings & Tips:
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Soggy
Bottom Crusts: Partially or fully bake (blind
bake) the bottom
crust before filling. |
 Thickeners
are one of the most important ingredients in making
pies with fruit fillings, and are the most
confusing. Pie fillings should be moist and
juicy, with the fruit cooked through and not mushy. The filling should hold
together when served, but not be so thick that it holds together in a stiff,
gel-like fashion. When on the plate, a filling should flow slightly.
A watery filling is usually the result of too little
starch in the filling; conversely, too much starch results in a rubbery and a
too thick filling.
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Protect
Pie Edges: Foil is perfect to use to protect the edges from burning or
browning too quickly. Line a baking sheet with a "cross of foil"
-- a piece of foil crossed by another piece of foil. Place the pie in the
center. Gather it up around the pie, covering the edges. |
Cornstarch and flour are the
two most popular starches used to thicken pie fillings because they absorb
moisture, but tapioca
can be used, as well. I like to use
SureJel for fruit pies, which
doesn't impart an off taste. Cornstarch and flour impart a
slightly starchy taste, that's why tapioca is preferred in pies made with juicy
summer fruits. However, you can substitute an equal amount of cornstarch or
flour, if necessary.
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