Chapter 33 · Pastry and pies
33.4 Cream pies
A cream pie is a baked single crust filled with a cooked filling of milk, egg yolk, sugar and starch, then topped with meringue and browned. Making one puts two lessons together: how starch thickens, and how egg proteins set. see chapter 7: What heat does to food
Safety first: fillings made with eggs and milk
Learn these rules before you make a cream pie.
- The filling is a PHF. Foods of animal origin such as milk and eggs, and anything that contains them, count as potentially hazardous. Fresh or cooked eggs, and pastries filled with cream, are both among them. see chapter 2: Potentially hazardous foods
- The danger zone. Most harmful bacteria multiply quickly anywhere from 4°C (40°F) up to 60°C (140°F). Keep a cream filling out of that range except while it is cooling quickly through it.
- Cook it through. Food mixtures that contain eggs must reach an internal temperature of 74°C (165°F), held for at least 15 seconds. The fillings below are all brought to a boil and boiled for one minute.
- Cool it in two stages. Within two hours, cooked food must fall from 60°C (140°F) down to 20°C (68°F). In the next four hours it must reach 4°C (40°F).
- Cool it in small amounts. A large pot of cooked dessert, such as custard, should be split into serving-sized portions before it is cooled. Shallow pans no deeper than 5 cm (2 in.), left uncovered and not stacked, cool faster. So does stirring the food in a container set in ice water, and using stainless steel or aluminum, which pass heat better than plastic.
- Cover it once it is cold. Leave it uncovered while it cools, because a lid holds the heat in. Once it is properly cooled, cover it tightly to keep anything from getting in.
- Hold it cold. The critical control point for refrigerated storage is 4°C (39°F) or colder. Dairy products belong in a refrigerator set between 2°C and 4°C (36°F and 39°F), covered and in an area of their own, because their fat picks up strong smells. Store ready-to-eat food, such as a finished pie, above raw food, never below it.
- Make it close to service. Prepare for the same day where possible. Anything kept refrigerated longer than a day gets a label with the date it was made and a "serve by" date. As a general rule, throw a PHF out if it has not been used within three days of being made.
Figure 33.5Cook it through, then cool it in two stages
The order of work
A cream pie has three parts, made in this order:
- Bake the shell. For a 6-inch pie: ½ cup sifted flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, and either 2 tablespoons lard or 2 tablespoons plus 1½ teaspoons vegetable shortening, with about 1 tablespoon of cold water. Mix and roll it as for a fruit pie. Ease it into the pan without stretching, leave a ¼-inch overhang, fold that under and crimp. Prick the bottom and sides all over with a four-tined fork. Then it goes into a 425°F oven for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown, pricking again if it bubbles up. Let it cool before it is filled.
- Make the filling (below). Cover it and set it aside.
- Make a soft meringue. One egg white, ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar, and 2 tablespoons plus 1½ teaspoons sugar. The yolk from that egg goes into the filling. Beat the white with the cream of tartar to the start of soft peaks, add the sugar a teaspoon at a time while beating, and stop at the top of the soft peak stage. Use it at once. see chapter 15: Meringue
- Fill, top and brown. Pour the hot filling into the shell, keeping it low enough that some crust shows above it. Spread the meringue evenly over the filling and right onto that rim of crust, so it seals. Swirl the top with a spatula, without sharp peaks or ridges. Brown it in a 350°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown.
Four fillings
Every filling follows one pattern.
- Sugar, a starch and salt go into the saucepan first.
- The liquid and egg yolk are stirred in gradually.
- The pan goes over medium heat and is stirred the whole time until the mixture thickens and boils, then boiled for one minute more.
- Off the heat, butter and the flavoring go in.
| Pie | Starch | Liquid | Added off the heat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla cream | flour | milk, beaten with the yolk | butter, vanilla |
| Chocolate cream | flour | milk, with chopped unsweetened chocolate | butter, vanilla |
| Lemon meringue | cornstarch | water, beaten with the yolk | butter, grated lemon zest, lemon juice |
| Butterscotch cream | cornstarch, with brown sugar | water and milk, beaten with the yolk | butter, vanilla |
Chocolate cream is made in a different order. The milk and chocolate cook with the sugar, flour and salt until the chocolate melts and the mixture boils, and it boils for one minute. Only then is the yolk added: about half the hot mixture is stirred slowly into the yolk, and that goes back into the pan and is brought to a boil again. see chapter 22: Egg yolks and the liaison
What a good pie looks like
Each part of a pie has its own standard.
| Part | Look | Texture | Flavor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crust (fruit pie) | light golden brown, slightly blistered | thin baked layers; crisp, dry, tender | delicate, colored by the fat used |
| Fruit filling | stays inside the crust, with little boiling out at vents or edges; fruit plump, moist and whole; thick but flows a little when cut; bottom crust barely soaked | fruit tender and soft | tastes cooked, and true to the fruit |
| Cream filling | a delicate gel that bulges slightly at the cut edge | smooth, even, light | delicate, right for the flavor |
| Meringue | glossy and puffy with an uneven surface; peaks golden, hollows paler; no beading, no leaking | cuts cleanly, not sticky; fine grain, baked through; tender, a little moist | delicate and sweet |
When a pie goes wrong
Each fault in pastry and pies has a set of likely causes.
| Fault | Likely causes |
|---|---|
| Tough crust | high-protein flour; butter or margarine swapped in for the fat in equal amount; too little fat, or fat poorly spread; too much water, or water spread unevenly so the dough needed more working; stirring too much once the water is in; dough not rolled out straight away; rolling it again; too much flour on the board |
| Crumbly or mealy crust, too tender to lift off the board | low-protein flour; an excess of fat; fat too warm or melted; fat worked in until too fine; too little water; too little mixing after the water goes in |
| Few flakes, or flakes that do not separate | low-protein flour; too little water to make steam; too little or too much mixing |
| Crust shrinks or loses its shape | dough stretched into the pan; rolled unevenly; rolled again or patched too often; any cause of a tough crust |
| Empty shell puffs up in the oven | not pricked enough |
| Crust browns too much or too fast | rolled too thin; dough very dry |
| Crust browns unevenly | rolled unevenly; edges too high; pie set too high or low in the oven, or too near the oven walls or another pan; not enough filling |
| Crust will not brown | too little fat; too much mixing; too much flour used for rolling; rolled too thick; wet dough |
| Soggy bottom crust | shiny pie tin; filling left sitting in the raw crust; pan set on foil or a baking sheet; oven too cool; baking time too short; cold filling; any cause of a crust that will not brown; in a custard pie, filling cooked too long, so it weeps (syneresis); in a fruit pie, filling not thickened first, too few vents, or a tear in the bottom crust |
To guard against a soggy bottom, start the bake at a high temperature. For a fruit pie, brush the crust with melted butter. For a custard pie, any of these help:
- Brush the crust with lightly beaten egg white and bake it hot for a few minutes so the white sets.
- Use a filling with more egg in proportion to milk.
- Heat the milk before making the filling.
- Chill the crust for an hour before filling it.
- Part-bake the crust first.
A few faults belong to one kind of pie.
- Crust rises up through the filling in a one-crust pie, such as pumpkin or custard: there is a hole or tear in the crust.
- Top crust "tents", standing up away from the fruit, in a two-crust pie: too few vents, or fresh fruit that was not packed down firmly.
- Filling boils over in a two-crust pie: too much filling; the two crusts not sealed well; too little thickener; too few vents, or vents too near the edge; an oven shelf that is not level; a top crust of uneven thickness; baking too long.
Faults in the meringue on a cream pie are faults of an egg foam. see chapter 15: When a foam goes wrong
Sources
This chapter is written from these open textbooks:
- Basic Scientific Food Preparation Lab Manual — Dept. of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State UniversityCC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Introduction to Baking and Pastries — Rink & Thibodeaux, Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, Nicholls StateCC BY-NC-SA 4.0
- Food Safety, Sanitation and Personal Hygiene — BC Cook Articulation Committee, BCcampusCC BY 4.0