Raspberry rhubarb pie

I’m a bit out of practice making pastry. I usually only bake a pie when we have friends over for dinner. So with the pandemic it has been a while since I made one. For this pie I decided to try Kate McDermott’s all butter pastry from her book Art of Pie.

Traditional Art of the Pie All-Butter Dough

An all-butter crust is not as flaky as a butter and leaf lard crust, but the flavor can’t be beat.

FOR ONE DOUBLE-CRUST PIE OR TWO SINGLE-CRUST PIES

INGREDIENTS

2½ cups (363 grams) all-purpose flour, unbleached

½ teaspoon (3 grams) salt

14 tablespoons (196 grams) salted or unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces

½ cup (118 grams) ice water + 1–2 tablespoons (15–30 grams) more as needed

I added 20 g of sugar to this to help with browning.

As per usual with pastry, getting everything cold including your hands is essential to prevent the butter from melting into the dough rather than staying ins sheets between layers of the dough. It is hard to avoid kneading it as a bread baker but we must resist the temptation to knead.

I sprinkle the water on about 1 tbsp at a time and then toss the flour/butter with a fork. After I added about 120 g of water, I pick up a handful of the dough and squeeze and once the dough barely holds together then the dough is hydrated enough. There may still be a few dry areas, I don’t worry about those as the 1 hour rest to allow the dough to hydration. I bring it all together I compress and then fold the dough several times in the bowl, then divide into two and then wrap in plastic and rest in the fridge before rolling the dough out.

I still have rhubarb that my close friends gave me from their garden, it was frozen away. So I decided I’d try a different combination of fruit to go with the rhubarb.
Sweet raspberries pair well with tart rhubarb, and the two combine into a beautiful ruby-red filling. Vanilla bean scrapings add a creamy smoothness to the mix.

MAKES 1 (9-inch / 23-cm) PIE

1 recipe for double pie crust

1½ pounds / 680 g rhubarb, trimmed and coarsely chopped

8 ounces frozen raspberries

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup / 192 g granulated sugar

⅓ cup + 1 tbsp cornstarch

⅛ teaspoon fine salt

I cooked this until it just started to thicken and then cooled overnight.

In the morning assemble the pie, filling the base with the raspberry rhubarb filling which has nicely thickened in the fridge. Do your lattice top crust and then fold and crimp the edges as you prefer. Place the pie in the freezer while the oven heats to 400ºF.

Once the oven has reached temperature, apply an egg milk wash to the lattice and then apply sugar. Place the pie on a lined cookie sheet and then place onto your baking steel on the lowest rack. I find you can get a nice dry browned bottom crust by baking low and on a preheated baking steel.

Bake for 30 mins at 400ºF then lower the oven temperature to 350ºF. Rotate during the final half of the baking and keep an eye on the top crust. I usually shield the crimped crust with a pie shield and seldom need to do any other shielding.

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