Grape Pie-spiration: Concord Grape Pie

This is my blog about my adventures in pie baking. This is my first post.

I took up pie baking as a hobby about 6 months ago. This was a fairly random choice for which I have little explanation, except that I believe there is a creative potential in pies not found in other baking. Not to sound down on the other forms of baking, they are a creative outlet. They just require such precise measuring to produce beautiful deliciousness. Pie is a little loosey goosey- like cooking where you can throw in abstract pinches and handfuls.

Before I began I had absolutely no exposure to pie baking. I had never made a crust or filling. (With the exception of a can of filling thrown in a pre-made crust about twice.) My mother did not bake pie. If my grandmothers ever baked pie I certainly never saw it. Or even heard of it.

So now, six months later I have some skills and love for my pie baking. I cannot parallel the soothing feeling I get from rolling out a pie crust in many other activities. Or the excitement I get when the fruit for that recipe I have been dying to try finally come in season. Or the anticipation as I let it cool overnight to see how it turned out in the morning. (My co-workers are a fabulous group of people who happily eat anything I bring in, even if it is a semi-disaster. Out of respect for this, I always eat the first piece to ensure I have brought them something edible.)

With my pies I strive for perfection. Nothing but flakey crust will do. Filling must be both delicious and of the perfect consistency. And whenever possible it better look pretty too. I comb the internet for new recipes and one of my favorite stops is allrecipes.com. They have just about every recipe you can dream of posted somewhere and in my first few tries I found their reviewers comments extremely helpful in recipe selection. However as I have grown as a pie-baker, I have come to find it somewhat unsatisfactory. It seems not everyone strives for my level of perfection, requiring me to attempt recipes repeatedly to get them just right. (And I WILL get it right because I will not allow myself to be beaten by a pie recipe!)

Case in point: Concord Grape Pie I, with a five star average after 25 reviews.

I have been eagerly awaiting the appearance of concord grapes since spotting this recipe in the very earliest of days of this new hobby. The recipe posted is:

1. 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
   
2. 5 cups Concord grapes
   
3. 1 1/4 cups white sugar
   
4. 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
   
5. 1 pinch salt
   
6. 3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
   
7. 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
   

Directions

1. Wash grapes, and remove the skins. Save the skins. Place grape pulp in a large saucepan; mash a few at the bottom to release their juice. Cook over medium low heat until grapes come to a full boil. Remove pulp from heat, and press through a food mill to remove seeds. Combine pulp and skins in a large bowl. Stir in lemon juice.
   
2. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, flour, and salt. Stir into grape mixture. Pour filling into pastry crust, and dot with butter or margarine. Cover with second pastry shell. Flute edges, and cut little slits in the top crust for steam to escape.
   
3. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 45 to 50 minutes, or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in top crust. Cool.

Round 1 changes:

Comments from reviewers stated that some found the filling needed thickening, and some people went right ahead and added cornstarch. However none of these people listed how much corn starch or at what point in the recipe- on the stove? After the stove? At the time of baking? Very frustrating.

So I reserved ~1/2 cup grape juice and mixed 1 Tbsp cornstarch to this, and added it after allowing the filling to boil a few minutes. Brought it back to a boil and removed from heat. Then (because cornstarch doesn't always re-heat well) I mixed in 2 Tbsp granulated tapioca and let it sit in the filling for at least 15 minutes before baking. I also only used about 1 cup of sugar because many said it was overly sweet and this was a more appropriate amount if you would like to taste grape. And I did not dot the inside with butter. I never do, this actually dampens the taste of almost all fruits, the exception being apple.

The pie was O.K. Major problem- soggy bottom crust. It was not golden or flakey in the least. Just a white moderately cooked bottom liner. Blah! (And not a single reviewer complained of this problem.) I also found my addition of thickener to be a bit over-zealous.

2 Days ago it was time for round two. Concord grapes don't stick around too long so I have a limited window to work with before being left in the dust, feeling defeated for an entire year before I can tackle it again.

Round two changes:

I skipped the cornstarch altogether- I'm not sure it even thickened the final result. I boiled the filling longer, somewhere in the 5-10 minute range. And I cut the tapioca down to just a smidge over 1 Tbsp. Then, most importantly, I PAR-BAKED THE CRUST. I cannot emphasize this enough. PAR-BAKE THE CRUST. Just do it, it does not take that long.

The result?

Filling I think is of an acceptable consistency (really thickener may be omitted in a future experiment) and most importantly a flakey golden brown bottom crust. Yum. Funny thing is I don't think grape pie will ever be my favorite filling, after trying it once I got it right. But that is just me, several others found it incredible and both pies were subjected to empty pan crumb eating.

Final recipe:

1. 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
   
2. 5 cups Concord grapes (2 packages how they sell them in my neck of the woods is perfect.)
   
3. 1 cups white sugar
   
4. 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
   
5. 1 pinch salt
   
6. 3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
   
7. 1 tablespoon tapioca
   
8. No Butter
   

Directions

1. Wash grapes, and remove the skins. Save the skins. Place grape pulp in a large saucepan; mash a few at the bottom to release their juice. Cook over medium low heat until grapes come to a full boil. Boil about 7 minutes. Remove pulp from heat, and press through a food mill to remove seeds. Combine pulp and skins in a large bowl. Stir in lemon juice and tapioca.
   
2. Roll out bottom crust and transfer to pie dish. Fill with a shallow layer of dry beans (or pie weights if your equipped with that kind of thing.) Bake about 15 minutes. Notes on my par-baking: At the exact moment I was doing this I did not have access to directions on how to do it. I just threw the beans in, your really supposed to line with foil or parchment first (No wonder I had to half dig them out of the crust. Then your supposed to take it out and bake a bit longer. I just baked until I thought it seemed done enough and removed the beans, replaced with pie filling. They also say par-baking is incompatible with a double crust. RIDICULOUS! I had no trouble pinching the uncooked top crust to the bottom crust and everything came our beautifully.
   
3. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, flour, and salt. Stir into grape mixture. Pour filling into pastry crust. Cover with second pastry shell. Flute edges, and cut little slits in the top crust for steam to escape.
   
4. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 45 to 50 minutes, or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in top crust. Cool.