the pie that almost wasn't, part 1

Warning: This post is laced with profanity. There. Proceed at your own risk.

Yesterday, I picked up a few things at the grocery store. I walked down the baking aisle for powdered sugar when I saw cans of pie filling and silently scoffed. Ha! I thought, it's easy to bake pie. Why would anyone use a canned pie filling? Surely it's not as good as homemade. Ha! The joke's on me. To anyone who uses premade cookie dough, cake mixes, or frostings from a can, I promise to never silently wonder why the hell you don't just bake from scratch. I promise not to judge you. Seriously. I promise. Because now I realize just how frustrating baking can be. It must be fucking frustrating to follow a recipe and fail to achieve the desired result. You probably follow the directions exactly as instructed, only to have the recipe taunt and tempt you when things go horribly awry.

All right. That was a little dramatic. I have spent this weekend, among other things, baking a freaking blueberry pie. It has taken nearly all weekend, and as I write this, the pie is currently in the oven (smelling heavenly, by the way) but I have no idea if it will turn out. In fact, there are three failed pie crusts in my garbage at this very moment.

As you may recall, I am in a pie phase and I successfully made a Chocolate Pudding Pie, Almond Apple Pie, and a Strawberry Pie. I'm still trying to master pie crust and I'm trying out different recipes. I decided to try out a recipe from Drew's mom. Instead of butter or shortening, the recipe called for a combination of peanut oil and milk. The dough came together pretty nicely, but it was incredibly flaky and failed to hold together. Then I couldn't get these fucking little crumbs to just meld with the rest of the dough. I started chatting (or bitching might be a better description here) online with Drew, who called his mother, who suggested that I try to add more milk to the dough. While all of this was going on, I was in the kitchen, silently swearing at the pie dough mess. Then I added a couple drops of milk, but nothing. Even so, I tried to roll it out, but it cracked down the center. I tossed pie crust #1 in the trash.

I went to the trusty Simply Recipes blog and decided to try the recipe for a perfect pie crust. I cut in the butter and started to slowly add in the water. The problem is that I know that I'm too impatient. When I start to add water, the dough, for the most part, starts to come together. Except for these wayside crumbs. Lots of them. And so I add more water, but then the dough becomes a gooey, sticky mess, which isn't good because pie crust is supposed to be flaky and light and buttery. I managed to get crust #2 rolled out and into my pie plate. But when I went to peel off the wax paper, I couldn't. The crust was just too fucking gooey. I tossed pie crust #2 into the trash and gave up pie making for the rest of the day.

Now, a sane and reasonable person would have just relented, gone to the store, and purchased ready made pie crust. Apparently, I am not a reasonable and sane person, and I did not want to swallow my pride. After all, I had done this before. I even purchased a pastry wheel for the event:
Plus, the picture of the pie was taunting me, challenging me to bake it. Wouldn't you feel the same if you saw this pie? Seriously, look at the oozing blueberries!

The next day, I tried to make the perfect pie crust again (that would be today). This time, I followed the directions and didn't take ANY shortcuts. None whatsoever. After I cut up the butter into cubes, I even placed them in the freezer, just like I was told. After I cut the butter into the flour, I vowed to go easy on the water so I would not have a gooey mess. I did not add any extra water, even when those fucking crumbs failed to join all the others into the dough mound. And just like one of the readers recommended, I put the dough into a plastic bag to make it easier to shape into the prescribed disk. I refrigerated the dough for an hour and let it sit out for 5 minutes before rolling it out. As I was rolling out the crust, I actually gave myself a silent pep talk. But the fucking crust did not behave. It fell apart, crumbled, and was quite uncooperative. I guess I would be too if someone kept calling me a fucker. I tossed pie crust #3 in the trash.

Still, I refused to give up so I made the recipe that I used for the Strawberry Pie. This crust called for a combination of shortening and butter, and I wonder if there is something about shortening that makes the crust easier to make and handle. Anyway, as I was making the dough, I actually had this thought: This is harder than a qualifying paper. Can you believe it? I compared pie crust to grad school, and grad school came out ahead. I rolled out the dough, and it still came out a bit gooey because I added an extra tablespoon of water. I had to coax it into the pie plate and even patch up the thin spots in the center, but I did it.

The filling was simple to make, and I was excited to use my pastry wheel for the lattice top. I was almost done. As I got ready to put the pie in the fridge before baking it, I suddenly remembered: I forgot to dot the fucking pie with the fucking butter. Good thing I made a lattice top. Here is the pie prior to baking.
I think I need someone to give me a pie crust lesson. I looked up cooking classes at Sur la Table, but a pie class costs $69. I have to decide how important it is to master pie crust. Or I could just continue to practice with massive quantities of flour, butter, and shortening until my crusts look like those in the pretty food blog pictures.