Pie is a treat almost everyone knows, and anyone who loves bread and pastry is sure to fall for it. Today we look at the different types of pie and how many kinds there are.
Pie is hugely popular and a great money-maker for dessert shops and bakeries, thanks to its taste and its appetising look. It also comes with endless filling options, so bakers can keep inventing new fillings and new recipes. Beyond flavour, pie offers a satisfying texture, crisp outside and tender inside, which is exactly why so many people love it. Broadly speaking, pies fall into two main types: layered (flaky) pies and short crust pies. Let's see how they differ.
Layered Pies
Layered pies puff up when baked, giving them a shape somewhat like ordinary bread. They can be divided into two styles:
- Crisp, hard shell: the layers come from many thin sheets of dough alternating with fat. In the oven, the heat melts the fat and turns moisture into steam, which pushes the dough layers apart so they puff up. Once baked through, you get a light, crisp pastry built up in layers that can hold all kinds of fillings. The main ingredients are wheat flour, fat and water. Examples include butterfly pastries (palmiers) and vol-au-vents.
- Soft shell: made from wheat flour cooked with water and fat, then beaten with eggs. During baking, steam together with the eggs and fat makes the dough expand and form a hollow inside. Proteins from the flour and eggs set the structure of that hollow so it does not collapse. Examples include éclairs, cream puffs and French crullers.
Short Crust Pies
This type of pie is very popular today. Once baked, the crust separates into thin flakes, making it both crisp and tender. It is mostly used with fillings of every kind: fruit, custard, cream, chicken or beef. The filling is limited only by your imagination, since this pastry pairs with almost anything, from fruit to meat. Short crust pies can be divided by how they are filled:
- Closed (double-crust) pies: you make two pieces of pastry. One lines the tray or mould and holds the filling; the other covers the filling. The top crust keeps the liquid in the filling from boiling over and stops the filling from drying out. Closed pies are popular for fruit pies and meat pies.
- Open pies: the pastry shell is baked first and left to cool, then filled with a cooked filling that has also been cooled. Examples include lemon pie and chocolate cream pie.
