Sweet as pie
In parts of Canada just a couple of generations ago, many families didn't consider a meal complete without at least one kind of pie for dessert.
Apple, cherry, blueberry, raspberry, peach, strawberry, gooseberry, rhubarb, pear and pumpkin all took their turns in season. And when fresh fruit wasn't available, cooks would make raisin, lemon meringue, orange, key lime, banana cream or coconut cream or would create their favourites using canned or preserved fruit.
But as more women joined the full-time workforce, homemade pies went out of fashion, and in many families the skills required to make them were lost.
One person who hasn't forgotten how to concoct the sweet treat is Karen Foster of London, although she doesn't bake as much now that her family is grown.
She was 18 and a new bride when she was taught her mother-in-law's way to bake a pie. Although Foster says her pies were never as good as her teacher's, she guesses she has made thousands of pies in the last 50 years and has passed along the techniques to her daughter and others.
She says there are no real "secrets" to her success with pastry. She uses a recipe she often has seen in old cookbooks. Some of her utensils are the same ones she used when she started, including a "triple sifter-" a metal, coffee can-sized sifter with three screens inside.
As she demonstrates her technique, she uses the words "quick and fierce-" terms one wouldn't normally associate with the creation of light and flaky pastry.
Foster takes the shortening out of the refrigerator about an hour before she wants it, so it's not quite room temperature, but not cold and hard, and cuts off just a little more than the recipe calls for. She sifts the all-purpose flour (not pastry flour), measures it and then adds the salt, measured into her palm.
She puts the square of shortening on top of the flour in a heavy glass bowl that's about 22 centimetres (8 1 /2 inches) in diameter and about 13 centimetres (five inches) deep, which she says is just the right size and shape for blending, and uses a knife to cut the shortening into pieces about the size of dice.
She picks up a pastry blender with fairly wide blades and this is when the "quick and fierce" action takes place. She attacks the flour-shortening mixture with speed, strength and enthusiasm, working her way around and to the bottom of the bowl in a fast chopping motion that, in short order, fully integrates the flour and shortening to a consistency of coarse meal, with no loose flour left in the bowl.
She says many recipes say the shortening-flour combo should look like peas, but she thinks this is misleading because the mixture could look like that and still not be completely combined.
She next adds the water from a glass filled with ice cubes, 15 millilitres (one tablespoon) at a time, in different spots in the bowl.
The workout starts again when she uses a table fork to stir the mixture as hard and fast as she can from the edge of the bowl. If you have enough water, she says, the dough will start to form a ball. This time it's not happening quite the way she would like, so she adds another 15 ml (1 tbsp) of ice water, restarts the energetic stirring, and in no time the dough comes together.
She takes it into her hands, shapes it into a more uniform ball, cuts it in half and places a half on a plastic pastry sheet generously sprinkled with flour.
After flattening the dough a little with her hand, she covers it with a large square of waxed paper, takes a wooden rolling pin and quickly, and with some strength, starts rolling the dough from the centre out in all directions, forming a thin, roughly 20-centimetre (eight-inch) circle.
The pastry sheet has 20- and 25-centimetre (eight- and nine-inch) circles marked on it and is a useful guide. But she says waxed paper covered with flour works just as well. Keeping a layer of waxed paper between the dough and the rolling pin prevents sticking.
When the circle of dough is the right size, she carefully peels off the waxed paper, gently folds the dough in half and places it over half the 20-centimetre (eight-inch) metal pie plate, then unfolds the other half and works the dough gently to the bottom of the pie plate and around the sides and top using her fingers. The dough is hanging over the rim in one spot and the rim is bare in another, so she takes the excess from the first and pieces with her fingers to cover the bare spot.
She has prepared her filling in advance - sliced Ida Red apples, sugar, flour, a little bit of salt and cinnamon. She says Spy apples are best for a pie, but she couldn't find them.
After putting the filling in the bottom crust, she reflours the baking sheet and repeats the process with the other half of the dough to make the upper crust. Before placing it, she moistens her fingers under the tap and dampens the edges of the lower crust around the pie plate rim. When she unfolds the upper crust on top of the generously mounded filling, she presses the edges of the upper and lower crusts together.
The water will help to create a seal to prevent the pie juices from overflowing as it cooks.
She then uses her fingers to crimp or ripple the edges to increase the seal and to make an attractive edging.
She bastes the upper crust with milk, but not the crimped edge, and the final step is to use a knife to make vents in the top crust to let steam escape during cooking. She says her children described her vents as "bird's feet," but any pattern will do. The pie is now ready for the oven.
Not counting the preparation of the filling, the entire assembly of the pie has taken less than 15 minutes.
Foster has preheated the oven to 230 C (450 F) and has moved the oven rack to the lowest level, closest to the element.
She bakes the pie at that temperature for 10 to 15 minutes - "until it looks brown enough-" and then reduces the heat to 180 C (350 F) for another 30 to 40 minutes.
She prefers a metal pie plate because it conducts the heat better than glass and because glass plates shouldn't be used at such high temperatures.
Within an hour, the pie is cooling on the kitchen counter, and 10 or 15 minutes later Foster and a guest are enjoying the unequalled flavour of warm apple pie with unbelievably flaky pastry.
It's an old-fashioned method with a taste that will never go out of style.
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