This was the same recipe(s) as last week's Peach Pie, only with about a cup of sliced strawberries substituted in for peaches. By and large it was a success, though in some ways slightly disappointing after last week's peachy perfection.
Comments and reviews below, after the pretty picture.
Our friends Ryan and Brian helped us taste-test, with the aid of some delicious vanilla gelato (not pictured, because we were too busy eating to bother with photography).
In Brian's words, "the bottom crust is a little nonexistent". This was true. Like with my previous crusts, the bottom gets a bit mushy under the moist filling. I'm not sure what to do about this-- I've been pre-baking assiduously. I wonder if maybe I shouldn't be pre-baking the crust? That would be counter-intuitive. I may have to do some research. Any expert bakers want to help me, a dedicated pie novice, by offering some crust-crispiness advice?
One process note: I decided to start prepping the lattice top in advance, and rolled and cut strips ahead of time. This wound up being a mistake: I couldn't store them properly anywhere, and wound up breaking half of them in the fridge. Then when I took them out they got soft and fell apart and I broke the other half while putting them on top. They tasted great in the end but this part was actually challenging for the first time. So it's probably best to mix up the filling first, then roll and cut the lattice strips while pre-baking the bottom, so that the assembly can all happen quickly: fill, then weave the top with newly-cut strips.
The filling was definitely looser than I'd like; last week I thought the peach filling almost too starchy, so I under-starched somewhat this time. I know how to solve that problem: slightly more starch. Our guests agreed but thought it tasted good nonetheless. Brian liked that the top crust was sugary. Suzanne thought the crust in general slightly too salty (I exceeded the recipe's saltiness by a tad), but Ryan and Brian disagreed and thought the salty crust added to the appeal. I'm not sure how I felt about the saltiness.
Overall judgements?
Suzanne: "This had more flaws than the previous pie but it was still delicious and lovely".
Brian: "All pie is better with ice cream, and ideally the ice cream would be in the middle so that when you dig your fork into the center of the warm pie you get cold ice cream".
Amen.
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