Make sure your fruit pie filling is properly sweetened, thickened (2024)

TEST KITCHEN

By DANIELLE CENTONI
The Oregonian

Most people think the hardest part about making a pie is the crust, and there certainly is a lot of technique involved. But you can disguise, or at least overlook, a not-so-great crust. But without a properly sweetened and thickened filling, what you'll end up with is a flop, not a pie.

The first thing to do is to taste your fruit. If it's either very tart or too bland, you'll need to add extra sugar to bring out the fruit's sweetness. If the fruit already tastes sweet, cut back on the sugar. This is a matter of personal preference. If you're not sure how much more or less sugar to use, add a bit less than the recipe specifies and let the sugared fruit sit for about 10 minutes until it gives off some juices. Taste the fruit, and then decide if it needs more sugar.

Many fruit pies, particularly peach and apple, need lemon juice to preserve the fruit's color and add a bright note to contrast with the sweetness. One teaspoon of lemon juice per pound of fruit should do it. However, you can omit it if the fruit is already very tart.

As for thickeners, bakers these days have many options, with flour, cornstarch and tapioca being the most common. Here are some things to consider when deciding which of these to use:

• Flour is readily available and doesn't lose its thickness when overcooked or overstirred.

• However, cornstarch and tapioca produce a more appealingly clear filling than flour.

• Also, cornstarch and tapioca have twice the thickening power of flour, so you can use less, which helps keep the filling from tasting starchy.

• Don't use tapioca in an open-face or lattice-top pie (unless you grind it into a fine powder first), since the granules near the surface tend to harden instead of getting softened.

• Open-face and lattice-top pies usually need a little less thickener because more moisture in the pie is able to evaporate.

• Pies need to cool completely for the filling to set, and we mean completely. This can take up to four hours, so plan ahead. When we tested the huckleberry pie on page FD3, we let it cool for almost two hours before slicing it and discovering it was pie soup. But an hour or so later, that "soup" had thoroughly cooled and thickened into a proper filling.

Freeze your summer pies to enjoy all winter long
We're all thinking of ways to preserve the taste of our all-too-short summer, and frozen pies are great. Sometimes frozen fruit can release more moisture when baked, so you might want to add about 1/3 to 1/2 more thickener to pie filling destined for the freezer, or a filling made with frozen fruit. So, if a recipe calls for 3 tablespoons tapioca, use 4 to 4 1/2 tablespoons.

There are several ways to freeze a pie. You can completely assemble the pie and freeze it -- in the pie pan -- until hard, then wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and seal in a ziptop freezer bag. Or you can freeze the crust and filling separately.

If you freeze the filling separately, you'll need to defrost it in order to make it pliable enough to fill the pie -- unless, of course, you freeze the filling in the shape of the pie. This is a great option because no one wants to wait around letting pie filling defrost. Plus, baking a pie with frozen filling makes for a crisper crust because the crust has a chance to set before the filling starts to defrost and release moisture.

To freeze the filling in the shape of the pie, pour the filling into a freezer bag and set it in a pie pan, which will act as a mold. Freeze until firm, then remove the pie pan. The added advantage to this method is you don't end up with all your pie pans stuck in the freezer.

Frozen pies take about 30 to 40 minutes longer to bake than fresh pies, and they should be baked at a slightly lower temperature to keep the outer parts from burning before the middle has a chance to cook. However, you need that crust to get good and set right away, so it's best to start out at a high temperature and then lower it. We usually bake the pie at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until the filling is bubbling and crust is browned. If the edges of the crust start to get too brown before the pie is done, cover them with foil.

Although plenty of people do it, we don't recommend freezing baked pies. You can't bake them from frozen (they'd have to spend too long in the oven and run the risk of getting scorched), so you have to thaw them first in the fridge overnight before reheating. The fruit often ends up mushy and not as fresh tasting, and the starches in the filling can break down when reheated, making for a runny pie. Also, the crust never quite crisps up like it should.

Danielle Centoni: 503-221-8591; daniellecentoni@news.oregonian.com