Pie Heaven: Part Three

So far we've talked about giving your pie crust a tune up

and exploring new corners of pie-dom, but I wanna jump

over to essentially what the basic principles of certain

pies are. Today... fruit pies.

Fruit pies can be made with a pre-baked crust and a soft

fruit by boiling a syrup separately and pour over the fruit

and cooked crust (berry pies)

or

by primarily making the fruit part of what becomes the

syrup during the baking period. (Apple Pie)

So by mixing the fruit with sugar, when baked the juices

of the fruit combine with the caramelizing sugars and

form a syrup/jam like filling.

I'm not saying this is written in stone and you'll never

find a pie that differs, but in general this is what you

will find and it will make baking pies a bit easier to

analyze.

For Thanksgiving at my Uncles I made a fruit pie

by combining these two techniques, as well as

the different flavours of fall.

Frankly, to me it is not Thanksgiving with out apples

and cranberries. So I mixed it up a little. I really wanted

to make a pie out of pears and put it all together.

As I said before, I combined the basic techniques.

I made a syrup with lime juice, maple syrup, cornstarch,

spices, and orange juice concentrate. I then poured it over

my fruit and allowed it to thicken up.

I filled the crust and baked it at 375F for about 40 minutes.

Honestly we didn't slice the fruit quite thin enough,

but it was quite the hit, despite the crispness. I'm probably

the only one that actually noticed.