partially-baked dough in the oven until the crust turns light browned. Remove the pie plate and crust

from the oven, cover the crust with the pie plate you’d had on top, turn all upside down and now

remove the second, inner pie plate and wax paper. If the inside of the crust appears slightly soggy,

or not quite brown, return it to the oven for a few minutes.

One problem with the upside down method is that you cannot make a decorative edging

pretty—the second pie plate tends to crush your artwork. But shrinkage with this method is very

little.

What to put inside the crust

We have four kinds of pie fillings:

. Fruit pies ideally have fresh fruits. If that is not available you can substitute canned,

frozen or dried fruit. Don't bother with prepared pie fillings if you are a serious bakers. Make your

own. An example for fruits pies is the all-time American favorite, the apple pie.

. Cream pies you make with smooth, creamy, pudding-like mixtures using milk, eggs,

thickeners and flavorings. Cream pie fillings always go into a prebaked pie shell, and often they

receive a cover of whipped cream or meringue. One of our favorite in this group is lemon meringue

pie.

. Chiffon pies are either fruit or cream pies, but you fold sweetened meringue into the hot

filling before pouring it into a prebaked pie shell. Banana chiffon pie is in this class.

. Specialty pies include everything else, from pumpkin and squash to pecan and Boston

cream pie.

Thickening with starches

We use starches to thicken sauces, gravies, soups and pie fillings.. The traditional thickener

for American cooks and bakers is flour. This choice was unfortunate for pie fillings because there

are several other starches with characteristics more suitable for them. When thickened with flour,

for example, the pie filling is cloudy and unappealing. With cornstarch it becomes brightly

translucent and with tapioca starch brilliantly transparent in which color and individual luscious

pieces of fruit show through clearly.

There is also a difference in flavor that various starches impart. Flour gives a slightly pasty

flavor but cornstarch and tapioca are flavorless, or nearly so. Some starches break down in the

freezer, others are unaffected. This property is important in commercial preparations but also for the

home bakers who freeze pies.

Flour has half as much thickening power than other starches (flour has much less starch

content than starches). Remember that when you substitute another starch for flour—use half as

much or you will have a thick, stubborn goo in your pie, not a filling.

Though it may seem that starches have indefinite shelf-life (nothing can spoil in them), food

scientist showed that they lose some of their thickening power when exposed for a longer time to

the oxygen in the air. Store them in airtight container and don't buy more than you can use in a year

or so.

The following table gives you a comparison of the various common starches available to us.

Arrowroot and tapioca are available in any Asian market, tapioca in any supermarket. (If you only

see pearl tapioca on the shelf, make a tapioca starch by pulverizing it in a food processor or in a

mortar.) Different kinds of flours are also included in the table for comparison purposes when using

Serious Kitchen Play