As a long, harsh winter overtook the East Coast this year, I continued to experiment with the wonderful Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. Following my successful attempts at the Buttermilk Chess Pie, I decided to go on to a seemingly more complicated winter pie, the Maple Buttermilk Pie.
I made this pie two weekends in a row, and unfortunately, the Pie #1 turned out better than Pie #2, which was (slightly) underbaked so a bit of a liquid mess.
(Pie #2)
Both pies were also slightly deficient in that the cornmeal crusts that I made both slightly sunk during the baking process, which reduced the amount of custard I could put into the pie pans. I poured the excess custard into ramekins to separately bake and serve. The custard ramekins tasted great even though they didn't look great, per the below pictures.
(Custard from Pie #1)
(Pie #2 and Accompanying Custard - with Green Chile Chocolate Custards)
I realized after preparing the crusts that I was supposed to use all of the water/vinegar mixture called for in the recipe, instead of just using enough of the mixture for the dough to stick together in a ball. I think that lack of moisture helped cause the sinking baked dough, because I otherwise seemed to follow the dough instructions to a T. (A reason to read the entire instructions section before starting work!)
(Dough Ball #1 - Prepared for Rolling!)
(Rolled Dough)
(Pricked and Chilled Dough)
(Sunken Baked Crust #1)
(Slightly Less Sunken Pie Crust #2)
Hopefully the combination of improving my pie crusts with more moisture and slightly overbaking the custard to the eye (so mostly settled instead of very giggly in the center) will help ensure perfect pies. In the mean time, I am glad that Pie #1 tasted and looked like a real, albeit partial, success!
(Pie #1)