The Art of Crimping a Pie Border and Baking to Perfection

When it comes to baking a pie, there are many nuances to consider, from the type of crust to the filling and finally, the presentation. One often overlooked detail is the crimping of the pie border. In this article, we'll explore various methods for crimping a pie border and discuss the importance of precision in achieving the perfect crust.

The Classic Crimp Method

For those who prefer a traditional approach, the classic crimp method involves folding the dough over the edge of the pie dish and then pushing it with your finger to create a seal. This method requires some practice to master, but with patience and persistence, you can achieve a beautifully crimped border. To start, simply fold the dough over the edge of the pie dish, making sure to tuck it under itself to prevent any gaps or openings. Then, use your finger to push the dough into place, creating a smooth and even surface.

Freezing for Perfection

Before baking, it's essential to let the pie crust rest in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. This step helps to firm up the dough, making it easier to work with and ensuring that the crust holds its shape during baking. You can also freeze the pie crust for a few days or even weeks in advance, as long as you wrap it lightly in plastic wrap to prevent drying out.

Browning Butter: The Key to Rich Flavor

To create a rich and nutty flavor in your pecan pie, browning butter is an essential step. Browning butter involves heating it in a pan until it turns golden brown, releasing the moisture and developing a deep, caramel-like flavor. When done correctly, browning butter adds depth and complexity to the filling, elevating the overall taste of the pie.

Tips for Browning Butter

To achieve perfectly browned butter, use a lighter pan if possible, as this will make it easier to see the color change. Alternatively, you can drizzle some browned butter onto a white plate and observe its color and aroma. Another trick is to listen for the sizzling sound of the butter, which gradually decreases in intensity as the moisture evaporates. When the sizzling subsides, the butter has reached its desired level of browning.

Cooling and Whisking

Once the butter has cooled slightly, whisk it into the filling mixture, making sure to incorporate all the little brown bits from the bottom of the pan. This step is crucial in adding flavor and texture to the pie. Next, pour the filling over the pecan halves, allowing them to float to the surface during baking.

Baking to Perfection

Before placing the pie in the oven, ensure that it has cooled completely on a wire rack or plate. As you can see from our finished pie, the crust has puffed up beautifully and stabilized slightly after baking. The nuts have retained their texture and flavor, while the filling remains gooey but not too wet.

Pecan Pie Perfection: A Study in Balance

The perfect pecan pie is a delicate balance of flavors and textures. By following these steps and tips, you can create a pie that's both rich and balanced. The crust must be flaky yet firm, while the filling should be gooey but not too wet. The nuts should retain their texture and flavor, complementing the buttery, nutty taste of the pecan pie.

In conclusion, baking a pie is an art form that requires patience, practice, and attention to detail. By mastering the classic crimp method, browning butter, and carefully balancing flavors and textures, you can create a stunning pecan pie that's sure to impress.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi i'm melissa clark from nyt cooking and let's just get one thing straight it is pecan it is not pecan it is book on ask any text in and i'll tell you so um yeah you know my producers are asking me to rank my pies rank my thanksgiving pies and i i'm a little embarrassed but i'm gonna do it okay you've got the three pies on the table you've got pecan apple and pumpkin it's thanksgiving you are only allowed one slice i don't know why this is a made up scenario but just say that you're only allowed one slice what do you go for i go for pecan i i love it it's my favorite i mean they're all delicious i love them all and pumpkin and pecan are like neck and neck for thanksgiving but pecan for me throws it over the edge because of the texture i love that crunch i love nuts and for this recipe i love the layers of flavor that i'm able to get into the pie i use a combination of maple syrup and honey and there's a little less goo and a lot more of the pecans because the pecans are the best part of a pecan pie right another fun thing that i do for this pie is brown the butter this is what i think anytime you're melting butter for a recipe you have a brown butter opportunity you can take it or not take it right so for this pie i melt butter and i took it if you add brown butter to nuts you are bumping up that nut flavor you're adding another richness a layer of richness just getting the most flavor possible first step for pecan pie is to roll out your pie dough use any pie dough recipe that you like you can even buy the dough it won't tell anybody what did julia child say when she dropped the chicken when you're in your nobody can see what you're doing when you're in your kitchen by yourself except you set it with a julia voice when you're in your own kitchen nobody can see what you're doing so no one can see what kind of pie crust you are using and make sure it's well chilled that is important first you have to kind of beat it into submission so of the three thanksgiving pies pecan is actually the easiest because there's not much to do to brown a little butter mix a few eggs and roll out your pie crust and don't worry about the ragged edges because we're going to trim it later you want to roll it out so that it is bigger than your pie dish by about two inches and now i'm going to trim it so it's even i'm just leaving enough overhang so that i can crimp it so basically just a little bit past the rib of the pie dish there's so many ways you can crimp a pie border and i'm just going to do the classic i'm just folding the dough over and then just pushing it with my finger and now i'm just gonna put this in the freezer for a minimum of 30 minutes or you can do it the day before or even a couple of days before if you do it a couple of days before you don't want it to dry out so you want to just wrap it really lightly in plastic wrap while the dough is in the freezer just want to mix up your filling and start off with browning the butter ideally when you're making brown butter you want to use a you know a lighter pan if you have a lighter pan just because it's easier to see the color of the butter but i am going to give you a little tip to work around that when you have a dark pan it's really easy you just drizzle some on a white plate and then you can see the color you can also tell there's other ways to tell when your brown butter is ready you'll certainly be able to smell it and you'll also be able to hear it what's really cool about brown butter do you hear the sizzling of the butter when that sizzling starts to quiet down you know that you've cooked a lot of the moisture off the butter this is going wild here and then you know that the butter is almost ready so when it gets quiet go over and have a peek i lower the heat don't worry you know what they say about sitting around waiting for water to boil waiting for butter to brown all right we're getting there see how it's starting to brown well you can't smell it but i can smell it it smells like nuts yeah see that's perfect you see how it's little dark brown flecks and the butter itself is brown that's what you're looking for and now i'm going to add maple syrup and i'm going to continue to cook this for another two minutes and what i'm doing is thickening the maple syrup so i'm cooking some moisture we just cooked moisture out of the butter we're gonna cook more moisture out of the syrup okay and then after two minutes just turn it off and then we're going to let that cool for about just about 10 minutes and the honey actually helps cool it down the reason we want to cool this is because we don't want it to cook the eggs and we're about to add eggs to the filling so i have brown sugar but i also have maple sugar and the maple sugar is just to accentuate the maple flavor that we already have coming from the syrup however maple sugar is expensive and hard to find so if you can't find it or you don't want to splurge it's perfectly fine to use more brown sugar i mean it's delicious either way you can't go wrong bourbon is optional but it is so good i really like bourbon in a pecan behind but if you don't leave it out add a little extra vanilla and all i'm doing is making sure that there are no lumps so i have pecan halves here and i'm going to put them in the pie you could mix them into the filling i like to put them in the pie because then you then you can turn them over and they just look a little bit nicer when you put them in rather than just stir them into the filling okay so this butter is cool at this point and i'm just gonna whisk it in i want to get all those little brown bits from the bottom of the pan you want them you want all those little bits of flavor and then just pour this right over your pecans and then they're going to float to the top while the pie bakes and now this is going into the oven onto my preheated baking sheet pie has cooled completely um as you can see you know it had puffed up a lot in the oven when right when you took it out and it has kind of stabilized the nuts are just beautiful they look like they're candied which is what you want in a pecan pie i'm very happy with the way this looks let's cut in it's perfect you can see the crust is baked through look at that beautiful golden brown color on that crust you can see the ratio of nuts to goo there is it's less goo than usual and more nuts and that's exactly the way i want to eat my pecan pie what can i say she's my favorite i love her it tastes like honey it tastes like maple but most of all it tastes deeply of pecans this is a good pie this may be my favorite pie but my second favorite pie and it's they're very close is pumpkin and i'm gonna show you how to make it next week um and here's the secret there's actually no pumpkin in it youhi i'm melissa clark from nyt cooking and let's just get one thing straight it is pecan it is not pecan it is book on ask any text in and i'll tell you so um yeah you know my producers are asking me to rank my pies rank my thanksgiving pies and i i'm a little embarrassed but i'm gonna do it okay you've got the three pies on the table you've got pecan apple and pumpkin it's thanksgiving you are only allowed one slice i don't know why this is a made up scenario but just say that you're only allowed one slice what do you go for i go for pecan i i love it it's my favorite i mean they're all delicious i love them all and pumpkin and pecan are like neck and neck for thanksgiving but pecan for me throws it over the edge because of the texture i love that crunch i love nuts and for this recipe i love the layers of flavor that i'm able to get into the pie i use a combination of maple syrup and honey and there's a little less goo and a lot more of the pecans because the pecans are the best part of a pecan pie right another fun thing that i do for this pie is brown the butter this is what i think anytime you're melting butter for a recipe you have a brown butter opportunity you can take it or not take it right so for this pie i melt butter and i took it if you add brown butter to nuts you are bumping up that nut flavor you're adding another richness a layer of richness just getting the most flavor possible first step for pecan pie is to roll out your pie dough use any pie dough recipe that you like you can even buy the dough it won't tell anybody what did julia child say when she dropped the chicken when you're in your nobody can see what you're doing when you're in your kitchen by yourself except you set it with a julia voice when you're in your own kitchen nobody can see what you're doing so no one can see what kind of pie crust you are using and make sure it's well chilled that is important first you have to kind of beat it into submission so of the three thanksgiving pies pecan is actually the easiest because there's not much to do to brown a little butter mix a few eggs and roll out your pie crust and don't worry about the ragged edges because we're going to trim it later you want to roll it out so that it is bigger than your pie dish by about two inches and now i'm going to trim it so it's even i'm just leaving enough overhang so that i can crimp it so basically just a little bit past the rib of the pie dish there's so many ways you can crimp a pie border and i'm just going to do the classic i'm just folding the dough over and then just pushing it with my finger and now i'm just gonna put this in the freezer for a minimum of 30 minutes or you can do it the day before or even a couple of days before if you do it a couple of days before you don't want it to dry out so you want to just wrap it really lightly in plastic wrap while the dough is in the freezer just want to mix up your filling and start off with browning the butter ideally when you're making brown butter you want to use a you know a lighter pan if you have a lighter pan just because it's easier to see the color of the butter but i am going to give you a little tip to work around that when you have a dark pan it's really easy you just drizzle some on a white plate and then you can see the color you can also tell there's other ways to tell when your brown butter is ready you'll certainly be able to smell it and you'll also be able to hear it what's really cool about brown butter do you hear the sizzling of the butter when that sizzling starts to quiet down you know that you've cooked a lot of the moisture off the butter this is going wild here and then you know that the butter is almost ready so when it gets quiet go over and have a peek i lower the heat don't worry you know what they say about sitting around waiting for water to boil waiting for butter to brown all right we're getting there see how it's starting to brown well you can't smell it but i can smell it it smells like nuts yeah see that's perfect you see how it's little dark brown flecks and the butter itself is brown that's what you're looking for and now i'm going to add maple syrup and i'm going to continue to cook this for another two minutes and what i'm doing is thickening the maple syrup so i'm cooking some moisture we just cooked moisture out of the butter we're gonna cook more moisture out of the syrup okay and then after two minutes just turn it off and then we're going to let that cool for about just about 10 minutes and the honey actually helps cool it down the reason we want to cool this is because we don't want it to cook the eggs and we're about to add eggs to the filling so i have brown sugar but i also have maple sugar and the maple sugar is just to accentuate the maple flavor that we already have coming from the syrup however maple sugar is expensive and hard to find so if you can't find it or you don't want to splurge it's perfectly fine to use more brown sugar i mean it's delicious either way you can't go wrong bourbon is optional but it is so good i really like bourbon in a pecan behind but if you don't leave it out add a little extra vanilla and all i'm doing is making sure that there are no lumps so i have pecan halves here and i'm going to put them in the pie you could mix them into the filling i like to put them in the pie because then you then you can turn them over and they just look a little bit nicer when you put them in rather than just stir them into the filling okay so this butter is cool at this point and i'm just gonna whisk it in i want to get all those little brown bits from the bottom of the pan you want them you want all those little bits of flavor and then just pour this right over your pecans and then they're going to float to the top while the pie bakes and now this is going into the oven onto my preheated baking sheet pie has cooled completely um as you can see you know it had puffed up a lot in the oven when right when you took it out and it has kind of stabilized the nuts are just beautiful they look like they're candied which is what you want in a pecan pie i'm very happy with the way this looks let's cut in it's perfect you can see the crust is baked through look at that beautiful golden brown color on that crust you can see the ratio of nuts to goo there is it's less goo than usual and more nuts and that's exactly the way i want to eat my pecan pie what can i say she's my favorite i love her it tastes like honey it tastes like maple but most of all it tastes deeply of pecans this is a good pie this may be my favorite pie but my second favorite pie and it's they're very close is pumpkin and i'm gonna show you how to make it next week um and here's the secret there's actually no pumpkin in it you\n"