Pie madness beings with Pear Pie

Three pear pies for Curtis’ birthday dinner!


Open Face Pear Pie

1. Unbaked 9” pastry shell (see recipe below for Barbara’s pie crust)
2. Bake blind (using foil and pie weights) @ 400 degrees for 10 minutes
3. Remove pie weights and foil and bake 4 more minutes

Reduce heat to 350 degrees

4. Peel 4 medium Bartlett pears (yellow but firm) and halve and core them. (I sometimes quarter them to get them to all fit in the pie dish)
5. Place pears in pie dish with the cut side down with the narrow ends of the pear toward the center.

Cream together:
¼ cup butter
1 cup sugar

Add:
¼ cup flour
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Pour mixture over pears. Bake at 350 degrees until firm (45 min – 1 hour) or until filling is set and lightly browned. Cool before cutting.

Barbara’s Pie Crust
Click here to learn about Barbara's pie class

2 ½ C. all-purpose flour
½ lb. unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ C. + 1 Tbsp. cold water

Mix together the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor. Dice the butter into ~ ½ inch cube (6 slices and then each slice into 9 pieces). Add to the food processor and pulse 5 times (each pulse about 1-1 ½ seconds) until the mixture has pea-sized lobules of butter still visible in the flour. Add the water while quickly pulsing the flour mixture to evenly distribute the water through the butter-flour mixture. Do not over mix! (It will look dry and crumbly)

Dump out the mixture onto plastic wrap. Bring together into a ball. Cut the ball in half and form two separate discs in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. Roll out or freeze dough for up to one month.