No-Roll Pie Crust

PHIL'S AUNT SHAYNA'S NO-ROLL PIE CRUST

Sift directly into pie pan
      1 1/2 c. flour
      1 1/2 tsp. sugar
      1 tsp. salt
In measuring cup, whip with fork
      1/2 c. oil
      2 T. cold milk
Pour liquid over flour. Stir and toss with fork (careful, it will seem like there is a lot of flour) until all the flour is dampened.

With finger tips, make an even layer on the bottom, up the sides and on the rim. Flute/pinch the rim crust with your fingers. If one place is too thick and one too thin, you can patch, but try to be even as you go.

Bake
      unfilled: 12-15 min at 425 deg. Before baking, place
           circle of parchment paper on top of crust and fill
           with pie weights or dried beans
      filled: 15 min at 400 deg, then 30 min at 350 deg.

      P.S. At the end of the 30 min., I've been turning off the
      oven but leaving the pie inside for another 30 min.-1 hour
      (because I forget to take it out or I'm taking a nap and
      tell Phil to just turn off the oven when the beeper beeps).
      The crust texture has been perfect every time. I have yet
      to see what it is like if I actually remove the pie when
      the baking time is over.

      P.P.S. Now that I've tried removing the pie on time, I
      think it is a better idea not to, especially when the fruit
      is very juicy. So whether it's accidentally or on purpose,
      leave the pie in the cooling oven to dry out a bit.

FILLING
Phil's Aunt Shayna mostly made this crust for her fabulous lemon meringue pie. But that may be more ambitious than you want. You can just make any old fruit pie using this crust. What fruit? Really, any of the usual: apples, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, or a mixture of two or more. I tend to make apple or peach myself. Here's an R3A2 recipe from Joy of Cooking.

Joy-of recommends
     5 cups of fruit
This seems like a lot to me, but it depends, literally, on how you slice it. If you use apples or pears, peel and core them and then slice them thinly so they cook down faster. If you use peaches or other stone fruit, you don't have to peel them unless you really want to. In that case, use the boiling water trick*. Leave the sliced fruit in a bowl, and in a smaller bowl mix together the SUGAR MIXTURE:
      1/2 to 2/3 c. sugar
      1/8 tsp. salt
      1 to 1 1/2 Tb. corn starch
      1/4 tsp. cinnamon
      1/8 tsp. nutmeg
You can toss the sugar mixture with the fruit and then put everything in the unbaked crust, or you can put a layer of fruit in the crust, top with some sugar mixture, and repeat until everything is used up. Or, if you happen to have put all the fruit in the crust before making the sugar mixture, don't worry. Just pour the sugar mixture all over the fruit. It will sink in and be fine. I often sprinkle some other things on top, such as
      1/8 tsp. allspice or
      ground walnuts (ground unto flour, if I happen to have
           ground too many for Vegetarian Epicure
           Eggplant (recipe on request))

Joy-of says to add lemon juice if the fruit is dry or if you like a little lemon. (I'd squeeze on the juice from 2 wedges of a medium lemon.) Joy-of also says always to dot with butter before baking. I routinely forget to do the butter and have never noticed the lack.

Phil's Aunt Shayna, may she rest in peace, taught Cooking in a middle school in Detroit for many years - which meant that she also taught the kids math, geography, science, nutrition, civics and everything else. I don't know if she invented this recipe or found it somewhere, but it is definitely perfect for middle-schoolers. And for everyone else. It's like making mud pies.

* Boiling Water Trick for Peeling: Fill a small pot about 2/3 full of water and bring to the boil. Have a pyrex cup or bowl half-filled with ice water standing by. Throw in (one at a time) whatever it is that needs peeling (can be a tomato as well as a peach or other fruit). Do _not_ turn off the heat. Leave the thing in the pot for 30 seconds, then remove it with a slotted spoon and plop it into the ice water for about 10 seconds. Take it out and the peel should come right off without any implements. If it needs help, use the tip of a knife to start the removal process. Repeat for the rest of the things in need of peeling. Add water to the pot or the bowl if you need to. Don't worry that the boiling water gets colored by whatever it is you're trying to peel. When you're all done, toss the water - into your garden during a drought.

rjm 8/25/93; 11/13/14;12/17/15

Marian Burros' New York Times Plum Torte (R3A2 Version)

PLUM TORTE - R3A2 VERSION
(also Blueberry Torte, Strawberry Torte, Raspberry Torte,
Peach Torte, Apricot Torte, ...)

THE NIGHT BEFORE - IF YOU THINK OF IT
Leave out to soften and bring to room temperature:
       1/2 c. butter
                 (Marian says to use unsalted and then she adds
                 a pinch of salt later.  I use salted butter and
                 no pinch and it works fine.)
       2 eggs
(You can actually keep eggs and butter at room temperature all the time, unless your kitchen gets very hot. See Note on Keeping Butter and Eggs at Room Temperature.)
If the butter is cold, microwave it at mid-power for about 30 seconds (more or less, just keep an eye on it) to soften for easier creaming. If it melts completely, it's OK, too: instead of creaming it with the sugar, you just stir.

THE DAY
Preheat oven to 350 and choose your baking pan. Marian didn't say to do the next two things, but I always do them: (1) grease the baking pan with butter, and (2) put the pan on a cookie sheet to catch any overflows. (Those drips are a delicious bonus for anyone who is around when the torte is done and the drip pan has cooled off.)

In a medium-large bowl, cream
        that BUTTER with
        1 c. sugar
Sift in
        1 c. unbleached flour

If you use gluten-free flour, such as Bob's Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten-Free, use 1-2T additional to make a stiffer dough. Also the torte bakes and browns faster. An 8" circular disposable cake pan takes ~40 min.

Stir in
        1 tsp. baking powder
        those EGGS
and mix until blended, but then STOP.  I begin mixing using the fork I used to cream the butter and sugar, then switch to a rubber spatula, keeping the fork handy to clean the spatula, and vice versa.  Note that the dough is more like a butter cookie than a cake, which of course is why the torte is so delicious.  But it is a dense dough. When I first made it I wondered if the New York Times had left out some liquid, say, milk.  They hadn't.  (Phil's Aunt Ruthie always made her Tortes with an electric mixer and they come out very light and airy, almost like a cake mix cake.  I prefer dense.)

"Pour the batter into [the] pan," says Marian.  Spoon is more like it. It doesn't pour, or anyway not if you don't overmix it.  I then spread the dough to the edges of the pan with the spatula.

Top artfully with
        12 Italian (prune size) plums, halved vertically and
             pitted, skin side UP (see below for OTHER FRUITS)
(In 2010 I found a version on the web that said skin DOWN. What ARE they thinking?  When the dough covers the fruit, which it does as it bakes, I like to see the little mounds, whether plums or berries.)

Marion weakly suggests the next three ingredients, and then doesn't even give measurements.  I think they are an absolute necessity and I use the amounts listed.  Sprinkle the top with
        Juice from 1/6 lemon -   about 1 Tb
        1 tsp each of sugar and cinnamon (or if you have a handy
                jar of 50-50 cinnamon and sugar, sprinkle it on:
                more than a light dusting but not a complete
                covering)

Bake at 350.  Springform, per Marian, takes 1 hour; cake or pie tin, per me, takes 45-50 minutes.  Test with a toothpick. If it comes out dry and the torte color is good, I turn off the oven but leave the torte in for another 5 or even 10 minutes to avoid any internal mushiness. The dough rises to cover almost all the fruit, browning nicely.  This means that my instruction to top artfully mostly just insures that the fruit layer is even.

Marian says, and it's true, that this torte freezes and revives well if you put the frozen cake in a 300 degree oven "briefly." I think 10-15 minutes takes the chill off the middle. Prune plums are only sold in late August, hence the other fruit options below, as well as the fact that her recipe begins with a story about making 24 tortes one summer and storing them in a friend's freezer, only to have the friend's mother eat all but two when she babysat for two weeks.  They are truly irresistible.

What pan?  Well, Marian referred to a "9 inch spring form pan." I have no 9" spring forms, just a few 10" ones.   I often use a disposable pan, either 8" round layer pan or 9" pie tin.  I've also used 8" or 9" square pans.  With square you can cut into squares, with round you serve wedges.  With a 10" springform, the dough layer is thinner. That is more elegant, like something you'd buy in a European pastry shop. It also means I use more fruit so that the dough is well-covered.

Other Fruits:
        Berries:  a monolayer.  Blueberries or raspberries or both: 1/2 lb. or about 1.5 c.  Strawberries: about 1 1/2 pints or about 12 large ones, hulled, halved vertically and tossed with sugar (less than 1 tsp is enough) a couple of hours earlier if you think of it, or at least as the first step before creaming the butter and sugar, if you don't. Sugaring the strawberries softens them and removes any bitterness. I learned that from my sister-in-law Betty Ann when she was making a fruit salad.
        Stone fruit:  Apricots (about 12 oz, 6 small or 4-5 larger):  halved vertically and pitted if small, otherwise treat same as peaches or regular plums: sliced vertically so that the slices are 1/2" or less at the widest point. Alternating slices of plums with peaches or apricots or both looks pretty, too.
        Apples and Pears:  Apples don't do it for me in this recipe but my friend Mae says she has used apples and liked the result. I suppose pears would be good but have never tried them.

Revised 2015: 6/1, 3/29. Original post available on request.
Earlier versions on my computer: 11/29/98; 6/1/00; 8/26/07; 10/3/10 - rjm