In the cooking/baking world, there are certain things I avoid…like any recipe that suggests I beat egg whites until they reach a certain consistency.
Seriously?! It’s risky. There is too much room for error. Flip the page, I say to myself, just walk away! There are other recipes that don’t mess with all those silly tricks.
Pie crusts. Now there’s another unattainable ideal. Building a pie strikes terror into my very marrow. Instead, I buy those deep-dish things in the freezer section. That’s how I bake pies.
In my defense, I have tried my hand at pie dough recipes once or twice. Those forays resulted in pie crusts that baked up more like a dried out hunk of old Play-Doh. Something you might find under a kid’s desk…something from last year…something cracked and hard and inedible.
Certainly nothing that you’d actually want to grace with fruit or a dollop of ice cream.
Which is why it’s still a mystery to me that I tried a Martha Stewart recipe for pie dough. Mind you, she calls it pate brisee (and if I could find the little button that adds the accent to the ‘e’ on pate, that word would look even more sophisticated).
I guess what appealed to me is that it sounded dead-easy, and if all else failed, I would probably end up with a soft hunk of Play-Doh to paint or model into random figures of, well I’m sure I’m digressing, let’s just say the possibilities could be limitless. I was willing to accept whatever fate resulted from the mixture.
But for whatever reason, whether my newfound wisdom of being over-50, my new Zen-like meditative state (ha!) or a planetary realignment, something had definitively shifted and suddenly it didn’t seem risky at all. It seemed downright doable.
And it was! Oh my goodness. Please try this recipe. I am about to make you a star. I guarantee this stuff.
If the Play-Doh Queen can suddenly whip up a rustic stone-fruit galette (aka a fruit pie) that, I might add, would look at home in any Paris bistro. Well hello (!) you can too, because I bet you don’t even shy away from egg whites.
I whipped up a batch of pate brisee, picked some plums from our tree, followed Martha’s easy-peasy directions (though I added a little more icy-cold water than she called for) and voila! It’s a slightly crunchier crust than regular pie dough and I love it.
And now? I’m making jam. WTH? My Inner Martha has been unleashed. Look out!
Ahh, if I were to make a pie I would eat a pie and therein lies the rub that wrecked the dough! This looks beautiful and I will remember the link when I have need to impress with an edible pie in a setting safe enough to serve it… i.e. one where there are more people than just myself. I love the beach picture!
Laurie, oh-so-true on the risky rub of the dough. Pies are definitely in the Mixed-Blessing category. I made sure that we had company before I created that baby. I have been known to ‘straighten the edges’ of various pies and cakes to a rather alarming finish.
Okay, I’ll trust you and try it. That’s a lot of trust on my part. My mom has a recipe she calls her “never-fail pie crust.” It says so right on the recipe card she made for me. It fails every time I try to make it. She just shakes her head in disbelief. Your galette, however, looks fabulous, so I’ll give it my best shot.
Oh, oh Sharry. I’m feeling the weight of your trust!!! One thing I didn’t mention in the post is that I made up the dough and because it’s enough for two galettes, I froze one dough portion and then thawed it overnight in the fridge when I was ready to make the pie. That previously-frozen dough was even better than the first freshly-made one. Either way, it’s good stuff.
Let me know when you make it 🙂