How to Make a Custard Pie | Bake It Up a Notch with Erin McDowell

it would not be an episode of bake it up a notch if we didn't light something on fire so let's do it [Applause] [Music] hi i'm erin jean mcdowell and welcome to this episode of bake it up a notch this is part two of our four-part pie spectacular which is celebrating the release of my upcoming book the book on pie [Music] together with food 52 we've broken down some of my favorite parts of the book so that we can take a deep dive and get you in the best pie shape you've ever been in if you like this episode and past episodes of bake it up a notch be sure to click like and subscribe at the bottom of the screen so you can be made aware when new episodes come up each month in this episode we are focusing on custard pies custard pies are one of the most popular kinds of pies out there think about classics like pumpkin and pecan but they're also some of the most misunderstood we're going to talk a little about the tools the process and as always we're going to show you where things could go wrong and how to fix it let's get baking if you're wondering what kind of tools you need to make your custard pies i'm going to suggest you watch part one of our four-part pie spectacular where we talked all about crusts how to bake them how to prepare them and just everything you need for kind of that initial part to give you that foundation so go check out that episode and you'll be ready to go for this one [Music] there are so many kinds of custard pies but people tend to think of just a few of the major ones i named a few classics like pumpkin and pecan those are definitely custard pies but there are so many more so let's talk about some of the many many many options that you can have a custard is sort of defined by being a liquid that is thickened with starch or eggs or sometimes both this can be done in a variety of ways but the technique that you're using when you're making a custard pie is considered a baked custard of course we're baking it we're baking it in the shell so all of these pies were baked with the custard inside classic custard pie right here i have one this is a coconut custard pie this particular pie is made just by whisking eggs and dairy and then pouring it into the pie crust that's about as simple of a pie as you can get and that's probably what you're thinking of when i say custard pie another of the most well-known would be this one right here i consider this well this is a pecan pie but i consider it to be custard to bind inclusions and what i mean by inclusions are the pecans themselves are the inclusions so i'm using the custard to bind all of the nuts together to make a beautiful appealing slice after you take those kind of two major ones there are tons of different kinds what have we got here you can actually take any kind of custard and turn it into a pie even if it normally isn't so i have two examples of that here this one right in front of me is a clefuti pie clafouti is a dessert thickened with both eggs and flour and it's usually baked without a crust just in the ramekin in the oven and it's usually paired with fruit like cherries or any fruit really so i made a raspberry cla foodie pie here and the custard is again binding those raspberries and it's also going in the little pools of the fruits you get kind of a combination custard pie with a little bit of the juiciness of a fruit pie i also have right here a creme brulee pie and for this i took my one of my favorite desserts of all time creme brulee and i just poured that custard into a pie shell and eventually added sugar on top and brew laid it just like you would with a classic creme brulee you can do this with really any kind of baked custard so souffles pau de creme if there's a custard recipe that you love i guarantee you can pie-fy it so there are so many options here some of my other favorites this is a fran japan pie fran japan pies are very traditional very classic i studied using fran japan as a filling in pastry school and what fran japan is is basically a nut based custard i don't know that everyone would classify it as a custard but it is thickened with eggs and starch so to me it is it's made with finely ground nuts and then you blend that with a little bit of eggs with some other ingredients and the result is this incredibly toasty creamy delicious sort of heartier custard pie that i love there's also right here we have swamp pie i actually first heard of swamp pie when i was young but i heard it again when i first started working at food 52 they have a great raspberry swamp pie on the website this is a blueberry swamp pie and it's done a little differently what swamp pie is is a fruit pie where custard is poured over the top during the last portion of baking it sort of floods all that fruit mixture and makes a combination creamy juicy amazing pie this blueberry swamp pie has streusel over the top so you pour that custard right over the streusel and even though it partially soggifies it it also absorbs all of that creamy flavor it is so good and you just have to try it to know what i'm talking about other favorite pies over here we have two sugar pies this is my pumpkin sugar pie and as you can see so beautifully smooth so creamy a sugar pie is made without eggs so it is made thickened with flour in the custard base this makes an incredibly smooth pie that is also super user friendly because it never ever cracks it will always stay perfectly smooth and that makes it great for all kinds of decor and finishing options as well and the final kind of custard pie one of my favorites is this one right here this is a corn chess pie a chess pie is made with cornmeal as one of the thickening ingredients and usually eggs as well so it gives the custard a little bit of a texture that is just so delicious they also typically have a little bit of tang associated with it maybe buttermilk maybe some sour cream maybe some yogurt even a chess pie is really really a classic and i like to make a little twist on it by adding some inclusions into my chess pie as well so there are so many options when it comes to custard pies and they all have similar rules so once you understand these basics that we're going through in this episode you can make any one of these pies or all of them if you're really bold make a table like this why not you can do it the beauty of custard pies is they can be made ahead and they are very very very user-friendly once you understand those tidbits so we talked about all the different kinds of fillings now let's talk about the crust [Music] my number one rule when it comes to custard pies is that you must yes must par-bake your crust a crust is not going to have time to bake sufficiently in the time it will take a custard to set to a smooth sliceable consistency so you need to give that crust a head start we talk all about par baking in episode 1 of the pie spectacular so check that out but what you're looking for is you want the crust to be set with light golden edges and you want it to look fully baked on the surface of course it needs to get even darker even more deep golden brown but that's what it'll do when it goes back into the oven with the filling best of all you've already started the process of getting it crisp before drowning it in a liquid filling that way you're guaranteed no soggy bottoms not on my watch you're gonna have a nice crisp bottom crust to your pie and your pies are gonna be a lot sturdier as a result i mentioned this in our part one of the pie spectacular but when a pie is properly par baked you can even pop it right out of the pie pan so in cases like this that makes it easier to slice later but it also gives you a good idea of how much longer it needs in the oven to bake when it has its filling added the second time around now in addition to par baking your crust there are a few other crust considerations that are pretty specific to custard pies and they come in the form of sort of sealing that crust after par baking there are different ways you can do this whether you're making a sweet pie or a savory pie but it just really helps to enforce that no soggy bottom by kind of creating a barrier between the crust and where the filling starts so there's a few different ways to do it one of the simplest is right when it comes out of the oven during par baking brush it with egg wash just take egg wash you can also do this with just an egg white or even just an egg yolk but what you want to do is you want to brush it with egg wash all over and you're kind of sealing that base if you do it while the pie is still warm fresh from the oven during its par bake it will actually usually set on its own without needing to be returned to the oven if you wait a little while like i am here you just need to put it back in the oven for 30 seconds to a minute to help that egg layer sort of cook and seal in the crust another thing you can do that is perfect for savory pies is a layer of firm cheese in the base of the pie crust so i've got some parmesan here and what i'm going to do is just sprinkle it in the base pretty generously because i want a nice outer layer now you can do this after you remove the pie weights during par baking that way it can kind of get a little firm on the bottom or you can just do it after it comes out of the oven from par baking just make a nice even layer and let it sort of adhere as that crust cools before you add your filling why am i mentioning a savory option for custard pies because one of my favorite custard pies of all time is quiche and so this is a great way to seal in the crust for a savory quiche i have a great quiche recipe on food 52 asparagus quiche so it uses this technique to help ensure that you have a nice crisp bottom crust and the third is really probably my actual favorite because it involves chocolate this is a black bottom base and in my book the book on pie we not only have a black bottom base we have a milk chocolate base and a white chocolate base as well you can do this with any kind of chocolate and it's basically just a firmer ganache we're just going to spoon it into our pie crust and then spread it into an even layer all over the base of that crust of course this just creates a nice chocolatey base but also seals that bottom crust preventing the custard moisture from seeping into it and also giving you this boost of chocolatey flavor that is so delicious right in the bottom of your slice i love this on all kinds of pies but i especially love it on my pecan pie or any kind of nut pie to bring in that little bit of extra sweetness so just like that these are all different ways that you can seal your crust helping ensure that it stays really flaky really crisp even at the end of baking being able to get nice clean slices that you can actually pick up with your hand and eat like a pizza there are lots of ways to add flavor to your custard pies but one of my favorite ways is by infusing the liquid itself with some kind of flavor you can build a lot of flavor that way and it's also a little bit sneaky the flavor might not be visible in the pie but it is packed in there which i love so when you want to infuse something it does require a little bit of thinking ahead and planning ahead you have to go ahead and bring your liquid to a simmer i'm going to just pour this in to infuse in a little bit you're going to bring your dairy this is cream to a simmer and once it comes to a simmer you add your aromatic ingredient this could be tea coffee liquor it could be fresh herbs like this mint that i'm going to add for our mint chocolate chip pie after it comes to a simmer you add that flavorful ingredient sort of stir it a little to combine if it needs to cover it with the lid and let it steep for 10 to 15 minutes during that steep time it's going to absorb all the flavor from whatever ingredient you added to it at which point you can strain it out let it cool and use it to mix your custard for your pie it's important to remember that if you let that dairy or that liquid simmer for too long it is going to evaporate and you won't have as much so if you're unsure if you're trying something for the first time maybe add a tablespoon or two more of the liquid of the dairy product to make sure you're accounting for any evaporation that happens during the steeping [Music] team pie that's me and i'm the quarterback that's not right one of the biggest areas that can kind of cause baker's frustration with custard pies is determining the doneness and i think this is so so so important when a custard pie is baked properly it will be set around the outside portion but will still have a little bit of jiggle right in the center portion of the pie this is really important because if you cook it too much so that it's firm all the way to the center it's likely to crack as it cools because those proteins are continuing to kind of coagulate and constrict and that's when that cracking happens we're going to talk more about that later but what you're looking for is actually for it to still look a little bit soft in the center because custard pies will carry over cook and they're going to firm up further as they cool and as they chill if the pie requires chilling so it's really important not to over bake these pies which can lead to disaster and what you're looking for whether in the oven or just fresh out of the oven is a little bit of movement in the center of the pie just just a little bit you want the whole outside edge to stay firm and look firm but that little bit of jiggle lets you know that your pie is done but is going to set into a beautifully smooth creamy consistency not a rubbery overly firm one there are a number of things that can go awry when making custard pies but they're all so easy to fix so let's start with the things that can happen when you're mixing and preparing your custard there are two kind of different things that can happen one is that you can get kind of a gritty texture from your custard as you can kind of see with this one that happens when the sugar and eggs if eggs are being used in the recipe are added and mixed together too early before you're actually ready to pour it into the crust and bake it sugar is hygroscopic which means it pulls moisture out of things so it likes to pull the moisture out of anything that has a lot of liquid like eggs for example so it pulls that moisture out that can make the eggs go kind of clumpy and lumpy and make sort of a gritty texture you can remedy this by adding the eggs at the very last minute so the sugar doesn't have time to do that you just want to add those eggs right when you're ready to pour the custard base into your pie crust and you should be good to go another thing that can happen when you're mixing custard is it can become kind of lumpy this is something that usually happens when there's a larger amount of starch in the recipe cornstarch flour cornmeal whatever your starch is in the recipe that you're using i like to remedy this by whisking the starch into some granulated sugar the granules of the sugar help to break up the starch break up any clumps and evenly disperse it so that when you add the sugar to your liquid base and your eggs etc that starch is dispersing just as easily and readily as the sugar is and you have no lumps no clumps your starch is a lot happier are other areas where things could go wrong happen during baking or after baking so let's talk about some of those which one first okay this one is a two-parter this one right in front of me this one we did not par-bake the crust and we over-baked the filling even with over-baking the filling the crust is very soggy which i'm going to show you i'm going to slice into this and you can also see that the filling is cracked so the soggy bottom is happening because we did not parbake but the cracked comes from the over baked filling when you don't allow enough time for carry-over cooking you're going to get cracks in this case we got cracks around the outside edge sometimes you get one really big crack in the center you know you can always cover it up with some whipped cream and no one's gonna know or be any the wiser but it's really good to know that it's a very preventable problem now let's slice in and see this soggy bottom [Music] it sometimes can be really difficult to even get soggy slices out because the crust isn't baked so it just doesn't want to yeah well there you go it's a bit of a disaster the crust has started to separate here from the filling and that's because it was cracked there but more importantly this is just absolutely soggy and not at all crisp down below because we did not parbake the crust so it did not have time to bake in the time that it took this filling to set this pie right here is actually baked totally perfectly and to me it looks textbook it is a great pie but it has one tiny problem right here along the edges there's been a little bit of weeping this is a very normal issue that can happen with custard pies when they experience temperature changes these temperature changes could happen a variety of ways the pie could be cooled too quickly like if you take it out of the oven and put it into the fridge that is a prime situation for weeping to happen or it can happen with other sudden temperature changes you know coming out of the oven if your house is really cold things like that fortunately it is a very easy problem you can't always avoid this particular issue so when it happens you can just grab a little piece of paper towel and gently lay it down where you see the weeping pressing it and then gently lifting it up and the moisture comes right up with it it's like hello did you see that like this is exactly what i'm talking about just par bake guys it's so worth it look look what this is this is so ridiculous here is our not par baked i can't even hold it on the spatula because he's so soggy let me cut another one this one's a disaster okay so here soggy crust that won't even stay attached to the filling soggy bottom because we did not par bake it look at that right there see that line of white that is just dough that's all under baked dough and it's not good to eat that like that's raw flour meanwhile our par-baked piece i don't even need a spatula the bottom is crisp it's staying attached to its filling the best guys i love pie so much okay we got to talk about this other one sorry i got off on a tangent all right so let's talk about the final mistake which is this pie which from above actually looks like a pretty good pie to me uh it looks nice and golden brown the crust has been par-baked but this pie has cooled completely and it has been under-baked so we showed you what happens when you over bake it cracking all kinds of issues when you under bake you end up with like a liquid custard pie and this is important because some recipes or your oven you know baking is a little bit about learning from experience learning those visual cues a recipe may say 30 minutes but a pie might take 35 minutes to get there in your oven and if you know what to look for you can avoid problems like this so i'm gonna go ahead and cut okay yeah i don't even have to cut into it all the way because liquid is coming out after i sliced um this pie was under baked by only seven minutes from what the recipe called for and it is fully still liquid i can't even take a slice because the liquid runneth over so you can see oh don't do that you want to keep your pies baked so they are sliceable consistency so even just five more minutes in the oven would have brought this pie to the point of being sliceable but because it was under baked even with that carry over cooking it just turned into a runny mess so with some of that knowledge in your back pocket you are now armed better to avoid these pie mistakes and have your best custard pie yet [Music] once you've baked your best custard pie you're wondering how to store it and lucky for you this is a weird way to never talk like this custard pies storing custard pies is actually really easy they're one of the sturdiest and most make ahead friendly varieties of pie for a few different reasons first of all the par baking step can always be done ahead of time the pie is going to return to the oven when the filling is added so it's almost going to get refreshed so you can parbake your pie a full 24 hours ahead of when you want to make the filling and bake it just to get that portion out of the way and done and over with the actual filling needs to be done at the last minute but that filling needs to cool completely and sometimes even be chilled before you can slice it so you really do need to plan to make these pies ahead you don't want to be making this pie an hour before a dinner party you want to be making it the day before thanksgiving or the day before your birthday party after the pie comes out of the oven you want to let it gradually cool this is partially because of some of the errors that can happen cracking weeping all kinds of issues that can happen with sudden temperature changes specifically with custard so you want to gradually cool that pie some recipes are even going to tell you to crack the oven door open and leave the pie in there for a little while to let it cool gradually sort of like a cheesecake which by the way is also a baked custard after you let it cool gradually that's when you can wrap it tightly in plastic wrap if you're not squeamish you can leave these pies at room temperature i often do but some recipes will also call intentionally for them to be chilled this often firms them up more makes them more sliceable all of the above it's up to you whether you want to serve the pie chilled or whether you want to bring it to room temperature before serving but these pies can easily be made ahead no problem this is actually one of the only varieties of pie that i suggest freezes well as well you can wrap it tightly in two layers of plastic wrap and then a layer of foil and it can freeze for several months thaw it in the fridge before you're ready to serve just remember that it is going to lose a little bit of its texture the crust might not be as crisp the filling might have a little bit of runniness to it just compared to how it was when it's baked fresh but that said these pies are the most friendly to freeze which can make things like holiday baking etc a little less scary the takeaway from this is that custard pies are easy to store great for making ahead and best of all even the components can be made ahead you can parbake that crust kind of get it off your to-do list and you're ready to make more pie [Music] there are so many creative ways to sort of judge up any pie but there are some that are specific to custard pies and work really really well with them so let's let's talk a little bit about them one of my first favorites is so easy and so so impressive i'm just going to push this aside and bring my pumpkin sugar pie forward i've got here doily i washed and cleaned this but this belonged to my grandma and what i like to do is lay the doily over the pie you could also use a stencil for this really anything that you want you can kind of press the doily so that it does gently touch the surface and i'm just going to sift sugar evenly over the surface of the pie and it's going to kind of be sifted in the marks of the doily you could do this with anything you could even just use a piece of paper to only apply the sugar on one half of the pie or make stripes you know there's really a lot of creative options but because custard pies have these smooth surfaces they are great for sifted finishes like this and it's really decorative and so easy then when you're ready to take your doily off you just want to try to lift straight up if you move it too much you risk kind of messing up the pattern so i just like to grip it with both hands and lift straight up just like that look how pretty that pie is makes me so happy so that's such an easy way to decorate a pie and it looks like a million bucks another favorite way is to make little cutouts so you can make this with scrap dough like i talked about in part one of the bake it up a notch pie spectacular but you want to bake these separately because you wouldn't be able to put crust cutouts on the liquid custard they would just probably sink in so what i like to do is use them to decorate the pie afterward by just arranging them anywhere on the pie or around the outside edge in little clusters just really fun really cute and something sort of different to help bring that pie to you know the next level to to bake it up a notch dare i say so we can just arrange these however suits our little hearts desire and you could do this with any kind of shape sometimes people say i don't have any of those little cookie cutters and so i say use your piping tips you can just use the round surface of your piping tip to make little circles you can really make anything and it looks so pretty and people love eating these little crunchy pieces of pie dough too they're sometimes you know picked off before the pie is even served because everyone just gets so excited about that yummy yummy pie dough [Music] so look how pretty that is and it's just so festive so fun and so so simple because you can do it separately you can do it ahead whatever you like so the other way that you can decorate a pie is sort of by adding other components garnishes finishes even another element like whipped cream meringue there are so many possibilities to just kind of like take your pie to another level so i've got some whipped cream for my coconut custard pie here and i'm just going to pipe a little border around the outside edge to just kind of judge it up i'm just using my piping skills from the piping 101 episode of bake it up a notch you can pipe on just some parts of the pie you can kind of pipe over the whole thing you could just use the back of a spoon and make sort of a swoopy swirl effect there's no right or wrong way it's whatever you want for your pie that's one of the things i love so much about pies there's so many possibilities for being creative with them and just like getting them all fancy i'm gonna finish this whipped cream with a little bit of just some sprinkles these are little chocolate crunchy sprinkles that i love and they'll be really good texture inside this coconut pie too so finishing with garnishes another really fun way to just take that pie from something simple to something really really special so all of these are great ideas for kind of decorating your pie even extra specially and making it the prettiest pie yet [Applause] [Music] thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of bake it up a notch where we dove deep into custard pies we covered everything that you need to know and i hope you're gonna make your best pies yet be sure to send me pictures of your pies using bake it up a notch leave me a comment show me your pies slide into my dms i wanna see what kind of pies you're making after you watch this episode and answer any questions i can our next episode part three is going to be everything about fruit pies so be sure to tune in next month and happy baking [Music] you

Channel: Food52

Views: 185,680

Rating: 4.9635587 out of 5

Keywords: Food52, food, cooking, recipe, chef, foodie, cook, home cooking videos, erin mcdowell, erin mcdowell bake it up a notch, erin mcdowell food52, erin mcdowell pie, bake it up a notch pie, how to make a custard pie, custard pie tutorial, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, swamp pie, clafoutis recipe, baking tutorial pie

Id: bxCenRW9Pkg

Length: 30min 5sec (1805 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020