Along with my daughter, we have gone there as many times as we could which was 5 times since we learned of the pending closure.
This owner/operator couple has a lot of talent in the fresh food arena.
The husband creates stunningly tasty sauced entrees which has brought him a devoted following over the past 39 years.
The wife has faithfully made fresh from scratch lovely desserts for years and years.
I really wanted her raspberry pie recipe before the 12-31-17 closure.
I got it from her. Today I am making a version of it.
Out of respect for this couple, I am not revealing their recipe.
And as is usual, I am changing it up with healthier ingredients.
I have made holiday pies plus a few others over the years. I'm not a pro at making pies, but I can get the job done.
Now I am in search of my favorite pie crust recipe. I've pinned a great number of them.
I prefer staying away from hydrogenated vegetable shortening. My daughter suggested I look for shortening that is healthier.
I found what I was looking for in the health food section of the grocery store.
It's Spectrum Naturals Organic Shortening and it is non-hydrogenated.
I've even made crusts with only butter and others with lard. I think they were all good, but not as light and flaky as I would have liked. Probably was a lack of understanding and technique.
I have an ally in my husband who brought me 4 packs of fresh raspberries, a bag of Bob's Red Mill Unbleached White Fine Pastry Flour and a package of unsalted butter.
The crust recipe has a lot of sugar. No wonder I like it. I hope to post pictures and other pie crust experiments in the future.
I used an old fashioned pastry cutter to cut the flour into the butter and shortening to obtain pea size pieces. also added salt and sugar. Then ice water at the end and mixed it as little as possible.
My current experiment is in the fridge getting cold for the next step.
Put rack on bottom of oven.
Preheated oven to 500 degrees.
Assemble the pie.
Fresh raspberry pie ingredients in Emile Henry clay (glazed) pie dish.
Turn the temperature down to 425 degrees.
Put pie in the oven and bake 25 minutes. Covered the rim with a silicone ring.
Rotate the pie, reduce temp to 375 degrees and bake another 30 minutes until deep golden brown.
Cool on a wire rack to room temp. before serving.
End result was that the pie crust was too stiff. Not light and flaky. I
don't know if the recipe with the altered shortening ingredient was the problem or
the high starting temperature. Or maybe it was just me. The experiment continues.
