Fresh pumpkin puree carries too much water for a pie
Homemade pumpkin puree holds too much water for a custard pie. The roast, the overnight drain, the target weight, and how to adjust a canned recipe for it.
12 min read
Author: Ellen Kovach
Ellen Kovach handles doughs, batters, sugar work, and custards. She trained as a pastry cook and now spends most of her time explaining why a recipe fails rather than publishing another version of it. Her pie crust notes have been revised eight times and counting.
Butter for flavor, shortening for flake, or both in one dough
Butter vs shortening pie crust, three doughs from one recipe: melting point, water content, flake against tenderness, and the substitution table by weight.
12 min read
Some apples hold their shape at 375F, others collapse into sauce
The best apples for baking, ranked by what survived 375F across nine varieties, plus the acid and calcium steps that firm up the ones that collapse.
13 min read
The pie shell slumped because the gluten never rested
Why a pie shell shrinks, and how to blind bake pie crust so the walls hold: two rests, cold fat, two pounds of weights, and the freezer step that works.
14 min read