30 Nov The Things That Shape Us
Sometimes pastry crusts will collapse despite your best and most careful efforts. This was the frustrating realization I had last week when I was trying to prepare some mini apple pies for Thanksgiving. I had attempted to partially bake the crusts, as the recipe directed, but the sides of the crust kept shrinking down and resting in an ugly, puffy blob in the center of the pie pans.
Unwilling to accept puffy-blob pies, I scrolled through the online recipe to the troubleshooting notes. There, I read that you can add weight to the crust before baking to prevent it from sagging and slouching to the bottom of the pan. This weighted baking technique promised to result in a perfect, light and flaky crust. You can then remove the weight and fill the crust with the filling of your choice.
So I tried again. I rolled out more pastry dough, gently pressed it into the mini pans and let it rest in the refrigerator. After 30 minutes, I poked the crusts a few times with a fork, lined them with parchment paper and filled them with dried beans to add weight.
After baking the crusts, I carefully removed the dried beans and parchment paper. It had worked. The crusts were perfectly shaped in the pans with the fluted edges intact. The inside of the crusts were dotted with tiny indentations where the dried beans had been.
As I looked at these crusts and the unique pattern of marks inside, I thought about the way the things that weigh heavily on us in our lives eventually may be lifted in one way or another. Yet the things we endure do leave lasting marks. Each one shapes us and we are left changed.
Later that day, I took a bite of the apple pie, enjoying the delicate, flaky layers of pastry. The indentations on the inside weren’t visible anymore because of the sweet apple and cinnamon mixture that had filled the crusts.
But I knew the tiny marks were there. The heaviness of the dried beans that weighed the crust down had brought out the lightness of the crust in the end.