The Important Step You Should Never Skip When Making A Fruit Pie
Fruit pies are the trust falls of baked desserts. After that pie goes into the oven, all you can really do is close your eyes and hope that the filling sets and the crust stays crisp. There are so many common baking mistakes to which we can fall victim, and there's really no good way to tell if you executed the recipe correctly until you're cutting into the finished pie. It's not like you can sample a slice before your guests arrive — or, you can, but ⅞ of a pie doesn't really make for a show-stopping reveal.
The King Arthur Baking test kitchen tested more than two dozen variations of fruit pies. The type of fruit — fresh or frozen, in or out of season, berry or orchard fruit, variety, and cut — all factored into the results. The thickening agent, crust style, pan, baking temperature, and baking time were also noted. Clearly, there is a lot to take into consideration when making a fruit pie, and, spoiler alert, every tweak will give you different results. There is one tip, however, that the recipe tester emphasized across the board: Do not cut a fruit pie while it's still warm.
Cutting a hot fruit pie will send the filling running
Why shouldn't you cut into a hot fruit pie? The answer has nothing to do with willpower. Nearly all fruit pies use some sort of thickening agent — like cornstarch, all purpose flour, or instant tapioca — to create a filling that's set rather than runny. The fruit can also be cooked down first to activate its natural pectin, a starch with gelling capabilities. Whatever the thickener in your fruit filling, it's activated when heated in the oven and needs to fully cool to gel properly, per America's Test Kitchen. If you cut into the pie too early, your filling is likely to just flow out, and your top crust will probably collapse.
Because the sugar allows the temperature of the filling to surpass the boiling point of water, fully cooling a fruit pie takes longer than you might think, explains Taste Cooking). How long exactly? America's Test Kitchen says that a fruit pie should be left to rest for a minimum of four hours, while King Arthur Baking strongly suggests leaving the pie overnight just to be on the safe side.
The point is, even if you want your fruit pie to be served warm later on, you should never skip the initial cooling process. Take a page out of Grandma's book: As painful as it may be, just leave that apple pie in the figurative windowsill for a good long while before grabbing a plate.