Crust has always been my favorite part of a pie. My mom used to take the leftover bits, spread with cinnamon and sugar, roll up, slice and bake them. Growing up, I thought these were what cinnamon rolls actually were, not the big, fluffy pastry goods.
Her version of cinnamon rolls were crispy and delicious, and I loved them even more than the pies she made. And she made good pies. (Especially the lemon meringue that she was famous for) Since she was using the trimmed remnants of the crust, there were usually just two or three bite sized tidbits for us to share.
That made them even more special. They were best warm from the oven!
Her crusts were always home made. If I remember correctly, with lard from my uncle’s farm. My crusts are the premade kind.
I’m big on saving time when I can, and you can buy a delicious ready to go crust. My favorite one is from Sprouts, it has a lot of flavor. I like most things from Aldi’s but I do not care for their crust. It seems dry and too thick. Kroger’s has a great one in their store’s organic brand and after Xmas, they were on clearance for 75 cents each, so I filled a corner of my freezer with a stack of them.
I see a lot of pies in our future!
These two were made with a frozen crust that came in a pan for the bottom, (not the best) and a refrigerated rolled dough in a box for the top. I prefer the box kind for both.
I let the top piece of dough come to room temp, and open it up on a cutting board, then start cutting out shapes with a knife, and placing them onto my filled pie. I discovered that you have to place chunky fruit, like apple slices in a very uniform design so there aren’t sink holes that the shapes fall down into and ruin the design.
I also found that roses made out of dough get pretty heavy. You’re better off with thin layers of petals, like daisies or sunflowers.
And that you should save a few little remnants to create some of Mom’s tasty cinnamon rolls. That’s the best part!
Comments