Berry Pie: Part Deux

For the second consecutive week, I made a 9-inch blueberry pie. I was invited to hot pot and I volunteered to feed 20 people dessert as part of my contribution to the party. Of course, one pie wasn't enough so the plan was to make an apple pie as well. I had to rope in my friend Richard to help out. Actually, he did most of the work while I was barking orders. I needed help and he wanted to learn to make pies, so it was a win-win situation.

In my last week's post, I mentioned that I would make the following adjustments for the blueberry pie:
-blind bake the pie to harden the bottom crust,
-create more steam vents by having a lattice top crust, and
-opt out blueberry jam.

I made the adjustments and this is how it turned out.

While it looked good, I made some mistakes in the process. I blind baked the bottom crust however, I forgot to add a parchment paper and dry rice for weight.

Blind baked at 200°F for 8 minutes

I took the pie out immediately after realizing my blunder and you can see that it's not completely cooked. There were also air pockets forming as a result of not using a fork to punch holes. Despite baking at a low temperature for only 8 minutes, the pie shrunk so the edges had to be patched.

I baked the two pies at the same time with the apple pie on the bottom rack. They were baked at 425°F for 25 minutes and I noticed that the top crust of the berry pie was golden already while the apple pie was mostly white. That's when I realized that in the 'bake' function, heat comes from the top and bottom of the oven only. The bottom crust of the berry pie wasn't cooked at all while the bottom crust of the the apple pie was cooked. I should have set the oven to 'convection' where heat is transferred equally to all sides of the pies.

Berry pie was placed on the top rack

Apple pie was placed on the bottom rack

After baking both pies for 25 minutes, I switched racks with the apple pie on top. I switched to convection heat and baked between 325°F and 375°F until I saw juice coming out of the steam vents. Unfortunately, I didn't time after I switched racks. The berry pie came out of the oven first, as expected.

See the difference between the two apple pies?

The above picture from two weeks ago is what I would like my apple pie to look.

The berry pie wasn't runny at all. As a matter of fact, there wasn't enough juice. Compared to my last berry pie, I pretty much went from one end of the spectrum to the other. The bottom crust was a little soft as well. At least the top crust was perfect!

If I had left the berry pie in the oven for a little longer, I believe that would've fixed both of these problems.

On the other hand, the apple pie had a crispier bottom crust while the top was a little soft. Filling was cooked perfectly. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of a slice of the apple pie as there were too many things going on at that time.

The problems that I encountered this week were mainly due to not baking properly. If I use the 'bake' function again while baking two pies, I'll make sure they are not placed directly above the other. For next week, I'll also make sure to have a wider bottom crust and blind bake properly. While I didn't receive negative feedback from my friends, I still haven't perfected the berry pie. Next week, part trois!