Egg Custard Pie - Week #9

This was a largely uneventful pie baking week.  I had never eaten (or, of course, made) an egg custard pie before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

Recipe

Picking a recipe took quite a while.  There are tons and tons of recipes to choose from.  Although there aren't many ingredients in this pie filling (generally eggs, sugar, milk, and vanilla), there are a wide variety of proportions to assemble them in.  I finally settled on this one -- who can go wrong with Grandma's Egg Custard, right? -- but I have to admit that I really considered one that used a staggering 10 eggs for a single pie.  I can't imagine what that would've been like, and I am pretty sure that I don't want to know, but it undoubtedly would have been interesting.

Unlike some weeks, there were not too many interesting issues or tips that I ran into with this pie.

Nearly every custard pie recipe called for a quantity of scalded milk.  Since I did not know what scalded milk even was, I had to do some research.  What I found makes me think that virtually every  recipe for custard pie must have been passed down for generations.  The bottom line from numerous sources is that scalding milk for custards or similar purposes isn't really necessary with pasteurized milk (therefore I'm thinking that the recipes were originally conceived prior to pasteurization becoming commonplace).  

Scalding serves three purposes: it kills harmful bacteria that may spoil the food being prepared, it destroys enzymes that may affect the way the milk performs in the recipe, and it raises the temperature of the milk to speed up results. 

from Kitchen Savvy

The effect on milk performance refers mainly to killing some enzymes that will prevent the custard from setting up.  So, I didn't scald the milk, but I did heat it up before mixing it in with the other ingredients since that was recommended in several places that also noted the lack of necessity for actual scalding.

Crust

I made some slight variations on my standard crust recipe including using vegetable shortening instead of lard.  The crust making is getting easier, but since I'm really still experimenting and making adjustments each time, it's not old hat by any means.  One thing that I did notice is that I preferred making the crust with lard instead of the shortening.  I didn't have the shortening very cold and so it really didn't stay in a good solid form as I mixed it in.  I think that I'll try freezing it next time.  It's all pretty much trial and error within some reasonable boundaries at this point.  I just want to have a good solid "go to" recipe and method in another couple of months.

Baking

The baking time for this recipe was 30-35 minutes, but I ended up baking for significantly longer than that.  I checked it after thirty minutes but the custard was still very runny.  By then the crust was starting to get pretty well baked, so in order to prevent burning it I tented some tin foil over the crust.  Overall the pie ended up baking for an extra fifteen minutes or so before it set up well.  I think that the tinfoil trick worked because even with the extra time the crust edge didn't end up overdone.

Oddities

The most interesting thing that happened with this pie was the strange baking behavior that can be seen in the picture below.

As I was monitoring the pie, especially when the bake time was extending beyond the recipe timeframe, it started to really bubble up in one area, and eventually the area that bubbled started to get overdone.  It didn't really end up burned, but it was pretty heavily caramelized (not sure if that's the correct term) and was significantly more well done than the rest of the pie. 

Once we cut into the pie, it was obvious what had happened.  Interestingly, it was the same bubbling crust issue that happened in week five.  In this case, the bubble had left the filling in the bubbled area extremely thin and so of course it cooked more quickly and left the overdone spots as a result.  The first time this happened I had chalked it up to the fact that I had failed to poke holes in the crust prior to baking it with the filling.  In this case, however, I had very thoroughly poked holes, so that apparently is not the golden ticket.  I'm not sure what strategy to employ to prevent issues in the future, but I am definitely open to suggestions from the peanut gallery...

I took a close-up shot of the bubbled crust, and you can see pretty well in this photo that some of the custard ended up below the crust.

Eating

This entry originally had a parenthetical Scrambled Egg Pie in its title, but I felt like that was divulging too much too soon, so I took it out.  However...

The original requester of this pie swears that it tastes spot on and brings back (dredges up?) memories of custard pie from her childhood.  I, however, have no such memories to fall back on nor get all nostalgic about.  I did have a notion of what I thought this custard pie would taste like -- as well as the texture, etc., etc.  The actual pie did not meet those expectations.  My ultra-fussy daughter and I both thought that it essentially tastes like sweetened scrambled eggs.  Not my idea of a great pie, but I'm still no connoisseur.  Too each his or her own, I guess.  All that I know is that it's slowly been disappearing all week, so it must be good -- to someone.

Finally

After this boring week, I'm sure there will be some wishing for a huge flaming disaster this coming week.  I promise to do my best.  Since I'm making two pies, absolutely anything is possible.

On a high note, Simple Simon got a pie-related call on Christmas Eve day.  A (devoted?) reader was looking for some pie crust tips.  I hope that I was of some assistance, and thankfully it sounds like it turned out well in the end.  Always happy to be of service and especially to pretend expertise where none actually exists.

Only 43 weeks left...