something missing

i got back the smell of butter in my fingers. the exact way they smelled when i first started baking pie. i think it's the anchor butter. and the CIA recipe uses more butter than the 2:1 formula.

using a pastry blender to cut and rub the butter into the flour. for mealy pie crust, make the butter evenly small. for flaky pie crust, leave some butter in larger pieces.

ice water is added by the tablespoon and the mixture is tossed and tossed. near the end, i used my fingers to pinch and press the dough together. that's where i got the smell in my fingers again.

the CIA pie dough uses a lot of butter, and so it was very much tender. and humidity these few days is like shit, and so it was so hard to roll and fit the dough into the pan; i had to refrigerate it so many times.

blind baking the pie crust until doneness. then brushed with egg white so that a thin film waterproofs the crust.

but alas, i was making the strawberry pie from beranbaum's pie and pastry bible. yes, the book has many pie crust recipes, but i wasn't up to making those; i just wanted to go back to my first pie dough.

the first filling is a white-chocolate-cream-cheese layer, which further waterproofs the crust. the second filling was a cooked strawberry filling thickened with cornstarch: this was supposed to accentuate the taste of the fresh strawberries later.

the strawberries were so pretty, and the pie was simply stunning after the glaze was brushed onto the strawberries.

and so delicious. there's something just so satisfying about making, looking, and eating this pie.