I take that back. In my last column, I wrote about Carla Hornbrook’s fool-proof, tried and true, decades old pie crust recipe. But when I said “fool-proof”, I forgot that meant fool-proof for other people. I have a complex about making pies – no matter how hard I try, they usually don’t turn out right.
I had frozen two of those never-fail pie crusts, thinking I’d use them for Jerry’s annual birthday cherry pie. I gathered up everything I needed and headed over to his house. The cherries had been sitting in the freezer for a good long while but still looked good. I thawed and strained them, made a roux, and added the cherry juice to make a sauce that was so wickedly good I had to stop myself from eating it all.
I sprinkled flour on parchment paper and on top of the dough and rolled it out. But as I rolled, it split in several places and turned mushy. Oh no! What to do? Frustrated, my mind replayed every failed pie I had ever made. In a fit of “I quit”, I was almost ready to wad the whole thing up and toss it in the garbage and just go buy a pie. As if by magic, Theresa suddenly appeared.
I showed her the mess and aired my frustration. She put on an apron and assumed a supervisory role. She watched me try to straighten out the crust, then informed me I was man-handling the dough and told me to be more careful. I tried to gingerly roll it out but it kept sticking to the rolling pin. Frustrated once again, I resigned and asked her to take over. I went back to tasting the cherry sauce.
She patiently worked the dough, patting it like a baby’s bottom. She folded the dough in half and placed it in the pie pan. We added the cherries and what was left of the cherry sauce, put the top crust on, and into the oven it went. An hour later, we pulled the pie out and let it cool.
The pie was utterly delicious – the crust was flaky and tender, the filling sweet and juicy. There was some left over pie dough so we put it on parchment paper, rolled it out, sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar, cut it into strips and baked it. That was such a lovey treat to eat with a cup of coffee while we waited for the pie to cool.
I’m going to try hard to get over my pie-making block. I may call Carla and ask her if she’d consider giving a well-intended fool a pie-making lesson. I hope she says yes! Maybe pies aren’t fool-proof, but friendship sure is.