Batching to perfect your pie recipes

With summer coming up, it's time to perfect that peach, apple or other favorite pie recipe. But how can you possibly try out all the variations you want to—and most importantly, get rid of all of those pies without gaining too much weight?

The answer is two-fold: mini-pies and batching. We’ve already talked about adapting a pie recipe to a miniature pie pan. You can go as small as muffin tins for your mini pies. I’m told a 9″ pie recipe will fill 12 regular muffin cups (but I think the sample size might be a bit too small to tell what tastes best to you). I used my 5″ mini pie plates to batch the chess, buttermilk chess, transparent and vinegar pies.

In this case, batching your pies means starting with a set base of the individual recipes’ common ingredients—such as your basic apple mixture—dividing that base into several dishes and mixing in the different ingredients.

I went about it an analytic way: I set up a spreadsheet and listed the ingredients and amounts for the four recipes I wanted to try out. Then I highlighted the ingredient amounts that were the same or nearly so. I took that amount and multiplied it by 3/4 to get the amount for four 5″ mini pies. That became my base (highlighted in yellow below).



After that, I added the extra columns between the recipes to multiply the non-common ingredients by 3/16, the adjustment for one individual pan.

In this case, the base was 1 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar, 2.25 eggs (or 2 eggs + 1 Tbsp beaten egg), and 3/4 tsp vanilla. Since eggs are roughly 1/4 cup in volume, I figured the total volume of my base was 1 1/2 cup + 3 Tbsp = 27 Tbsp. Dividing that up for four pies yields a little less than 7 Tbsp (8 Tbsp = 1/2 c).

Since this base isn’t complete, we don’t want to pour the plain base right into our prebaked pie crust! No, first we pour the individual mini pie amount of base into a bowl. Then for each pie we mix in the non-common ingredients. Then pour the pie into the crust and bake.

As you’re mixing, pouring, baking and tasting, it’s vital to keep your pies straight. For me, a dry erase marker was invaluable. I used my cooktop as an operations base and labeled each burner with a letter for the pie as I was mixing. Then I labeled the oven door and put the pies in the oven matching their labels. When they were done, they went back on their still-labeled burners.

I even photographed the pies with the letters visible so I could identify them later: I took a picture of the pie on the burner with the letter in the background, then sliced the pie (photo), took out a piece (photo) and sampled it (photo). If you’re good, you’ll take notes (I learned this eventually). And soon you’ll be able to narrow down your favorites and taste them head to head.

Batching pies is a little bit of work—and sometimes more than a little bit of math!—but to find the perfect pie, it’s a step you won’t want to skip!

Don’t forget to check out my mini-pie article for more tips!

Have you ever used batching to perfect a recipe?

Vinegar Pie vs. Transparent Pie: smackdown!

As I hunted for a chess pie recipe to try, I found some interesting distinctions. Some believed vinegar was a key ingredient in chess pie, but others opined that vinegar automatically made a pie a vinegar pie. I can say that adding vinegar made a pie pretty delicious . . . okay, I don’t think the vinegar made that big a difference, but it was a little bit tastier that way.

Another pie I came across during my recipe hunt was a similar pie called transparent pie. The Kentucky area claims it, so you can sometimes find transparent pie and chess pie at the same event. The biggest difference is that transparent pie is thickened with flour rather than cornmeal. It’s also purported to be a short step away from a nut-less pecan pie—but no corn syrup here.

Like chess pie, both transparent pie and vinegar pie are basic egg-based sweet custard pies. When I made my chess pie and buttermilk pie, I also made this week’s transparent and vinegar pies. In fact, I batched them—and more about how to do that next week. For the pictures in this post, the pictures on the left-hand side are vinegar pies, and the ones on the right are transparent.

Vinegar Pie vs. Transparent Pie: Smackdown!

I found my transparent pie recipe on Boonie Foodie, and my “vinegar” pie recipe is Martha Stewart’s chess pie recipe. I modified both slightly: I lowered the amounts of egg and sugar in the transparent pie to match the other pies for better comparison, taking it from the equivalent of four eggs and two cups of sugar to three eggs and one and a half cups of sugar. I tripled the vinegar in the vinegar pie—but don’t worry, the flavor didn’t carry through to the final version.

Both pies (modified) use the same amount of sugar, eggs, vanilla and butter. The transparent pie also added the flour thickener and cream. Since the vinegar pie features neither corn meal or flour, this pie is thickened solely by eggs.

As with the chess and buttermilk pies, the top of these pies had a delicious sugar crunch like a very thin meringue, and the centers are simply sweet without tasting exactly like sugar. Obviously, without the corn meal, neither of these pies were at all gritty, but surprisingly, I didn’t find them noticeably smoother than the corn meal-based pies.

Personally, of these two, I preferred the vinegar pie. It had a beautiful golden color and the butter and sugar combined for a wonderful caramel flavor. The transparent pie was also good, in a straight-up sweet way.

The winner overall, from all four pies, was the buttermilk chess pie. The notes of buttercream in its filling just edged out the caramel flavors in the vinegar pie. But really, all of these are good pies!

Scores:

	Vinegar Pie, Martha Stewart	Transparent Pie, Boonie Foodie
Taste:	3.5 stars	3 stars
Texture:	3 stars	2.5 stars
Easy to make:	4 stars	4 stars
Durability:	5 stars—the crunchy meringue-like upper crust actually held up on the counter, instead of getting soft like a meringue does	5 stars—same
Wow factor:	2.75 stars	2.5 stars

Recipes
These recipes have been adapted for 5″ pie pans.

Vinegar Pie
adapted from the Martha Stewart

• 1/4 cup plus 1.5 tsp granulated white sugar
• 2 1/4 Tbsp liquid egg product or beaten eggs (just over half an egg)
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 tsp vanilla (if you have a “pinch” measuring spoon, it’s actually 3 pinches)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 unbaked 5″ pie crust

Transparent Pie
adapted from Boonie Foodie

• 1/4 cup plus 1.5 tsp granulated white sugar
• 2 1/4 Tbsp liquid egg product or beaten eggs (just over half an egg)
• 1/8 tsp vanilla (if you have a “pinch” measuring spoon, it’s actually 3 pinches)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 tsp flour
• 2 1/2 Tbsp cream
• 1 unbaked 5″ pie crust

Directions for both pies
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls, then add wet to dry. Pour into pie crust. Although most recipes will tell you to lower the temperature at about 20% of the total baking time, I left my oven on 350 and baked them for about 25 minutes. (The vinegar pie did take slightly longer.) Check your pies often—I considered them done once the top crust was fully set, and might crack but wouldn’t collapse if I tapped it.

What's your favorite kind of pie?

Gingerbread Pie with Marshmallow Meringue (and extra waywardness!)

Last year, I experimented with several "Christmas-y pie ideas"—cranberry apricot, eggnog chiffon, and today's example:

Gingerbread pie with marshmallow meringue!

Gingerbread just says "holidays." This custard pie has molasses and brown sugar and some of the classic spices for a spot-on gingerbread taste. The recipe itself comes from Sprinkle Bakes, but I make my "experimental" pies in miniature pie plates that are 5" across, so I have to adapt everything (starting with the crusts).

Here's the recipe for a 5" pie:

1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp molasses (not blackstrap)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp flour
tiny pinch salt (or use salted butter)
1/4 tsp ginger (heaping)
1/8 tsp cinnamon (heaping)
1 egg yolk
1/8 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp buttermilk
A pie shell

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Mix the butter, molasses and brown sugar using a hand mixer. Mix in the flour, salt, and spices. Add the egg yolk and mix until thoroughly combined. Mix in the vanilla and buttermilk, then pour into the pie shell [the original recipe uses a regular, unbaked pie shell; I used a blind baked graham cracker crust].

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until set (not jiggly in the middle when moved).

I'd rate the pie itself "not bad." The texture is chewy, especially around the edges, but pretty good, though it's a little weird paired with the gingerbread flavor, which was pretty good.

The marshmallow meringue topping, however, was FANTASTIC. Here's the 5" pie version:

1 egg white
1/8 tsp vanilla
tiny dash salt
2 tsp sugar
1 1/3 oz marshmallow creme (about 1/4 cup)

Beat the egg white with vanilla and salt until foamy. Add the sugar a bit at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form, like in the first picture here:

Add the marshmallow creme a little at a time. I recommend stopping the mixer and putting the marshmallow creme underneath the beaters. Otherwise, my mixer grabbed the chunk of marshmallow creme and flung it to the side of the bowl.

Note that once you've added the marshmallow, the stiff peaks disappear and we get into a kind of ribbon stage again. That's perfect.

You could also use straight marshmallow creme, but it's stiffer and harder to work with. See:

After spreading the meringue you can make it fancy. I usually spoon it on, making sure to seal the edges to minimize shrinking. Then I use a knife or spatula to make the peaks, tapping it on the surface and pulling it off. Brown it in a 400 degree oven.

I cut a real-sized slice out of my mini-pie:

YUM.

My mixer beaters are so high in my bowl that they can't beat fewer than three egg whites (sad, I know). So I had to make the full-sized pie recipe of the meringue (double sad). With all the extra meringue, I piped these babies:

I love meringue drops and I was already hoping to make some for this year. The marshmallow flavor was a big bonus (and some mini chocolate chips would make these perfect!).

Normally, meringue drops do NOT expand as they bake, but the marshmallow kind of changes that, so they expanded a little, and took a bit longer to bake. I gave mine about 30 minutes in a 300 degree oven. Once they look dry, you turn off the oven and leave them in there with the door shut (or slightly cracked, depending on what recipe you use).

I know what you're asking: where are the glamorous shots of the final product? Well, when you're fixing dinner and your meringue drops are resting in one oven, and you need to cook your dinner in the other oven, make sure you turn on the right oven, or you'll ruin both.

And that's what it means to be Wayward & Crafty.

Fortunately, I still had the little bit on my pie. My then-one-year-old was fascinated by it and climbed up to the table to take a look. When she saw me coming to get her, she swiped a handful and stuffed it in her mouth.

Yep. Raising the next generation of Wayward Girls. (And she's got good taste!)

What pies will you be making for Christmas? How do you like to use (or eat!) gingerbread?

Chess vs. buttermilk pie: the smackdown

Last year, I went on a quest to make unusual pies, and this is where I began. When Sky Magazine asked Martha Stewart what the most underrated pie was, she said, “Chess pie.”

Apparently chess pie is a Southern classic. I was born and raised in the South and not only had I never eaten it, I’m not even sure I’d ever heard of it. I knew this had to be remedied, and I had to find the perfect chess pie.

So what’s with the name? It conjures images of board games of strategy or Alice in Wonderland (especially in chess tart versions). But really, no one knows exactly how it got the name. Equally specious theories include that originated in Chester, England, or that a Southern woman (who apparently had developed a Southern accent before the US was even its own country) told her husband she was serving “jes’ pie.” (Should I spell that “pah”?) Possibly the most likely is that because the pie kept well in a pie chest, it was originally “chest pie,” and the t and the p elided.

There are probably hundreds of variations on chess pie, the most basic sweet custard pie you’ll find. All recipes use an egg-based custard, sweetened with sugar. Corn meal is often used as a thickener. Some people say that’s what makes a chess pie a chess pie, but not all the recipes I found used it. Some recipes even include a little vinegar to cut the sweetness with a little acid, but many believe that including vinegar moves the pie into a whole ‘nother category: Vinegar Pie (next time, pie fans!). The Merry Gourmet’s chess pie recipe includes some vinegar, but I omitted it so I could compare the pies with and without it.


I picked four recipes to make in my new mini pie pans. This week, we’ll cover a chess pie recipe from the Merry Gourmet, and a buttermilk (chess) pie recipe from About.com. (The parentheses are because they call it buttermilk chess, but I just call it buttermilk for short, though a true buttermilk pie is slightly different.) For the pictures in this post, the pictures on the left-hand side are chess pies, and the ones on the right are buttermilk.


Chess Pie vs. Buttermilk (Chess) Pie: Smackdown!

Both of these recipes use egg, sugar, and cornmeal (as a thickener). This particular buttermilk pie actually calls for double the vanilla of the chess pie, but I made them the same. The chess pie uses a little milk, while the buttermilk, naturally, uses buttermilk. The buttermilk pie also calls for a little butter and a small amount of salt.

I was almost afraid to try these cornmeal confections. I have a texture hangup with hard bits in something that’s supposed to be smooth and soft (ice cream, yogurt). What if the cornmeal didn’t get any softer? Would I be able to choke them down?

Results
The top of both pies has a delicious sugar crunch like a very thin meringue, and the center is simply sweet without tasting exactly like sugar. Surprisingly, the pies didn’t seem gritty between the crunch of the sugar crust and the regular pie crust (though after swallowing, I did find a few bits of lingering meal). The best part is the little bit along the edge of the pie—combined with the side of the crust, the custard takes on a chewiness that’s an awesome surprise. After discovering this, I made my husband sample a piece of the edge, and he agreed.

Personally, I preferred the buttermilk (chess) pie, even though it turned out . . . less than beautiful, comparatively speaking. The texture was a little more substantial, slightly chewier (in a good way), and the flavor had a fantastic hint of the butter included. I should note that the Merry Gourmet’s recipe, from her grandmother, actually called for three times the butter used in the buttermilk version, but she forgot it and said the pie tasted perfect without it, so I omitted it as well. I made two other pie varieties at the same time as these which did use the full amount of butter, and I still preferred the butter taste in the buttermilk version.


Scores:

	Chess Pie, Merry Gourmet	Buttermilk (Chess) Pie, About.com
Taste:	3 stars	3.5 stars
Texture:	2.5 stars	4 stars
Easy to make:	4 stars	4 stars
Durability:	5 stars, For both, the crunchy meringue-like upper crust actually held up on the counter, instead of getting soft like a meringue does	5 stars
Wow factor:	2 stars. It’s not underrated for nothing.	3 stars.

Recipes

These recipes have been adapted for 5″ pie pans.

Chess Pie
adapted from the Merry Gourmet

• 1/4 cup plus 1.5 tsp granulated white sugar
• 1 tsp cornmeal
• 2 1/4 Tbsp liquid egg product or beaten eggs (just over half an egg)
• 3/4 Tbsp milk
• 1/8 tsp vanilla (if you have a “pinch” measuring spoon, it’s actually 3 pinches)
• 1 unbaked 5″ pie crust

Buttermilk Chess Pie
adapted from About.com

• 1/4 cup plus 1.5 tsp granulated white sugar
• 1 tsp cornmeal
• 2 1/4 Tbsp liquid egg product or beaten eggs (just over half an egg)
• 1 Tbsp buttermilk
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 Tbsp butter, melted
• 1 unbaked 5″ pie crust

Directions for both pies
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls, then add wet to dry. Pour into pie crust. Although most recipes will tell you to lower the temperature at about 20% of the total baking time, I left my oven on 350 and baked them for about 25 minutes. Check your pies often—I considered them done once the top crust was fully set, and might crack but wouldn’t collapse if I tapped it.

Have you ever had chess pie? What did you like (or dislike) about it?

Making individual mini pie crusts

Last year, I went on a PieQuest to make crazy pies. The following originally appeared on the Latter-day Woman Magazine Blog.

When I first started planning my PieQuest, I knew I couldn’t make a full-sized pie for every recipe I wanted to try. I mean, what if they were gross? What if they were amazing—and I ate the whole thing? What would I wear if I got too fat for my clothes?!

I thought there must be a smaller alternative. I thought about using muffin tins, but I was worried about getting them out. (Muffin tin pies are totally do-able; I’m probably just being overcautious) So I turned to Target. Online I found a nonstick aluminum pan with a lid, but at $13 and 6″, it was too expensive and too big for this project. When I went into the store, I found 5″ red ceramic pie pans for $5. Perfect! You’ll probably be seeing a lot of my little red pans. (One caution, though: the label says they’re only oven safe to 400 degrees F.)

Being wayward and crafty, I wanted to figure out how to adapt full-size recipes to my mini pie pans myself. I started thinking through the math and the formula for the circumference and volume and how to convert that from cubic inches to cups…. and then I realized there was a much easier way.

We’re measuring volume and we want the answer in cups: pour water in them to measure the volume.
The easiest way to do this is to use a graduated liquid measuring cup. Fill it to an easy-to-remember level: start with 1 cup. Pour it into the pie pan until the pie pan is full. (To make sure you’re not spilling, you might put your pie plate on newspaper or white paper that will show spilled water quickly. Then stop pouring!) Look at the cup and see how much is left.

For my 5″ pie pans, the volume was 3/4 cup. I also checked my usual 9″ pie pan. It was 4 cups. The math is coming back in here: (3/4)/4 = 3/16 = 18.75% . The 3/16ths measurement might sound weird, but it works well for our Imperial measurements: there are 16 tablespoons in a cup.

The first time I broke out my pie pans, I actually used all four for one batch of pies (with variations). When you’re making four at a time, you’ll reduce the recipe for the filling to 3/4.

Though some interesting surface area calculations that I can’t seem to replicate just now, I ended up figuring I should use the same factor to convert a double 9″ crust pie recipe into a 4 x single 5″ crust pie recipe. I have no idea how I got some of these numbers—apparently showing your work is a good idea. All I know is this worked for me when I made the crust!

Here’s an adaptation of a pie crust recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (love it!). When I made my first batch of mini pies, I used a different recipe that had waaay too much shortening! The BHG cookbook tells me too much shortening makes a crust crumbly, and it really was. This BHG recipe, however, has always worked for me in the past.

Pie Crust
Makes four single 5″ pie crusts

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 1/2 Tbsp vegetable shortening
• about 5 Tbsp ice water

Mix the flour and the salt in a medium bowl. Using a food processor, two knives or forks, a pastry cutter or your fingertips, cut the shortening into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse pea-sized crumbs. Add the water, one tablespoon at a time, to the flour, gently combining it, until the dough sticks together. Divide in four equal balls. Chill if desired. Roll out each piece to 1/8″ on waxed paper or a floured board. If necessary, carefully use a spatula or pancake flipper to get it off the board and transfer to pie pan.


Makes one single 5″ pie crust

• 1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 Tbsp vegetable shortening
• about 1 1/2 Tbsp ice water

As above

Possibly the best part of these little pies: even if you eat the whole thing, it’s like 1 1/2 slices of an 8-slice pie! If you can find someone to split your mini pie with, you’ve eaten less than a piece!

What do you think? What size pie would you make?