America's Test Kitchen

-Today on "America's Test Kitchen," Elle makes Julia triple berry slab pie with ginger lemon streusel.

Adam shares his must-have pie-baking tools, and Sam makes chocolate cherry pie pops.

It's all coming up right here on "America's Test Kitchen."

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-When you're feeding a crowd, it can be a challenge to find recipes that guarantee everybody gets a piece of the pie... literally.

So Elle's here today with a recipe for a mammoth berry pie.

-I love entertaining, right?

But sometimes that 9-inch pie is just -- It don't cut it.

It's just not enough.

-Don't cut it.

-It's not enough.

So today I'm gonna show you how to make a crowd-pleasing pie, and it starts with a lot of dough.

I have 1 3/4 cups of flour here in the food processor.

I'm gonna add 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon of table salt.

And I'm just gonna pulse this a couple of times to make sure it's mixed well.

So I'm gonna add 19 tablespoons of butter cut into half-inch cubes.

Alright.

So I'm just gonna let this go in the food processor for about a minute because what we're looking for is a homogenous paste.

There we have it.

It comes together pretty quickly.

-Yeah.

-So I'm just gonna take this homogenous mass of dough and break it into 2-inch pieces and redistribute it around the blade.

Boom.

Like that.

Alright.

I'm gonna add our last 1 cup of flour.

I'm gonna pulse it about four or five times.

So that looks pretty good.

I'm going to get it into the bowl.

We want this dough to be in about 1-inch pieces.

-Mm-hmm.

-Some will be smaller, and that's okay.

Now that we have our dough broken up, I see some big pieces here.

So I'm just gonna break these up, make sure that everything is in 1-inch pieces.

Okay.

So this is 5 tablespoons of butter that we grated and just put in the freezer.

So now I'm gonna just toss this to make sure that the butter is coated with flour and separated.

Right?

No pieces sticking together.

-Mm-hmm.

And as those shreds of butter melt in the pie, that's where you get flaky bits.

-So I'm gonna start by adding 1/4 cup of ice water to this dough at a time.

This is where it feels pretty traditional for me, right?

This is where we start doing all the normal pie-crust things we do.

-Right.

-Okay, so I'm adding an extra 1/4 cup of ice water, looking to get the flour moist.

-Mm-hmm.

-This looks great.

This is exactly what we're looking for.

-Mm-hmm.

-The spatula is pressing the dough.

That's the texture we want.

-Yep.

-This is a perfect time to divide this dough in half and get ready to shape it.

So I'm gonna give you half of the dough.

Friends first, you know?

-Thank you, thank you.

-You're welcome.

So we're gonna do a rectangle.

It's gonna be a 5x6 rectangle.

-Okay.

-We need these rectangles to be near perfect, right?

We don't want any creases, no wrinkles.

-Okay.

-Right?

Alright.

So these are gonna go in the fridge for about two hours.

-Okay.

-Okay, Julia, these doughs have been in the fridge for two hours, and they've been out for about 10 minutes.

Slacking a little.

-Those are perfect to roll out.

-Perfect to roll out.

All we need is a little flour on the surface, which we have.

-Yeah.

And I see two rolling pins, two doughs.

-That means you have to roll some dough.

-I'm happy to roll some dough.

If I remember correctly, you really go heavy on the flour with this dough.

-Yes, it's not so wet, but it is sticky.

-Yeah.

-So what we need here is a 16x11 rectangle.

What we need to do is get this dough onto the parchment so that it can chill a bit.

-Okay.

-I'm gonna use this old "roll it around the rolling pin" trick.

-Mm-hmm.

-There we go.

Alright.

So you can slide yours on top here.

-Nice.

-Now that we have both of our doughs on the parchment and the sheet tray... -Mm-hmm.

-...I'm just gonna cover it loosely with some plastic wrap.

And we're gonna let it go in the fridge for about 10 minutes.

Alright, Julia, it's time to lay down some dough.

-Is this our pie plate?

-This is our pie plate because it's a slab pie.

So I'm gonna start by using our rolling-pin trick... -Mm-hmm.

-...and using it to lay our dough down.

-So you're only laying that on half of the sheet pan.

-Yeah, we're gonna -- We made two doughs and we're gonna use both, right?

Just like that.

-Oh, I see how this is coming together.

-Yeah.

-Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

-So what's important here is that you have at least a half-inch overlap in the middle of these two doughs.

-Okay.

-Okay?

More is okay but not less.

-That makes sense.

-Yes.

Boom.

-Well, because if that's the bottom crust, any juices could really seep out that seam.

-And we don't want that.

-Okay.

-We want all our juices in the pie not under the pie.

-Yeah.

-Alright.

So this looks really, really nice.

What I'm gonna do is just kind of lift the sides to press it in before we do any more permanent work.

So it's just a little lift and tuck.

Okay.

So I'm gonna just take my brush and a little bit of water.

And we're gonna brush our overlap.

-Ahh, gluing the seam.

-Alright.

That looks really good.

-That looks great.

-It feels secure.

Now I'm gonna trim the edges.

It's time to crimp the pie.

-Oh, the best part.

-Yes.

First to do that, though, we have to tuck our bit of overhang that we left, that half-inch of overhang.

So make sure that the edge of your pie just rests gently on the edge of the sheet tray.

-Oh, nice.

So it can support that crimp.

-Yeah.

This is kind of like a pinch-and-press method... -Mm-hmm.

-...if you will.

So I'm just using my two fingers here to create a little pinch moment.

Right?

-Mm.

-And then using any knuckle -- any knuckle you got available to kind of push the dough in there.

-That looks great.

-Thanks.

Alright, so this is beautiful.

It's ready to go.

I'm just gonna cover it with some plastic and put it back in the fridge for 30.

And then we'll be ready to go.

-Alright.

-How do you feel about fairy dust?

-[ Laughing ] I think I like it.

-Okay, good.

Because that's what we're making today.

We're gonna make a traditional streusel, which I love.

I call it fairy dust.

-Aah!

-And I'm gonna start with 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup of packed light brown sugar, 1/2 cup of crystallized chopped ginger.

This is my favorite.

-Ooh!

-That's the fairy dust right there.

It's the ginger.

1/4 cup of granulated sugar, a tablespoon of ground ginger, a teaspoon of lemon zest, and 1/4 teaspoon of table salt.

Give it a quick little stir.

And you know what makes it better?

-Butter.

-10 tablespoons of butter.

-Wow!

-Yeah.

So it's melted and cooled.

So now the butter is in.

We're giving this a really good stir.

It comes together really quickly.

But we're just gonna set it aside for about 10 minutes while we work on our berries.

-Okay.

-So we have our beautiful berries.

-Mm-hmm!

-But to make sure that that juice is preserved properly, we're gonna use a little instant tapioca just to make it nice and thick for us.

Right?

So I'm gonna put this in the spice grinder.

This is 6 tablespoons of instant tapioca.

Alright.

That looks good.

-Mm-hmm.

-Tapioca's ready.

I'm just gonna go straight into this 1 cup of granulated sugar.

I have 1/4 teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of lemon zest.

Now we're just gonna go in with the berries.

-Okay.

-Alright I'm gonna start with the blueberries.

This is about 4 cups of each berry.

I'm starting with the more firm berries first.

That's kind of my technique here.

-That makes sense.

-And finally beautiful raspberries.

-Those berries are just gorgeous.

-Beautiful.

So I'm just tossing this in the sugar.

This is a gentle maceration if you will.

-[ Laughs ] -These look great.

Looks like everything's fully coated.

Now we can get our pie dough out of the fridge and get ready to fill this pie.

-Okay.

-So we have all of our berries ready and I'm gonna get these in the center.

Right?

Just shake them out.

I'm gonna spread these around.

And will you be willing to sprinkle fairy dust... -Oooh!

-...on my slab pie, please?

-Oh, I would love to.

-So I have my oven preheated at 375 degrees.

I have a rack at the lowest position... -Mm-hmm.

-...and one just above that.

-Okay.

-That's where the pie will go.

So I've already placed the foil on the lower rack in the oven just to catch any bubbling juices.

And we're gonna let it cook for about 45 minutes to an hour.

This is all the things I dream of... -Mm-hmm!

-...in a slab pie.

-Oh!

-Beautiful brown crust.

The streusel has browned.

This is exactly what we're looking for.

-Mm-hmm.

-And although we are very tempted to spoon into it right now, it's piping hot and it needs about two hours to cool.

I don't know about you, but that was the longest two hours of my life.

A good 2-hour cool means that the fruit has set, the crust is cool and flaky.

Let's get into it.

-Alright.

-So this can feed quite a crowd, right?

-Yeah, it can.

-18 to 24 people.

-Oh, wow.

-Yeah.

Yum.

-Oh, gorgeous.

-There you go.

For friends.

Let's taste this beautiful pie.

-Oh-ho-ho.

Mmm!

The berries still have some texture.

They didn't turn to total mush.

The juices have thickened.

I get the lemon zest.

And that streusel -- that streusel is, like, a magic.

It -- That would taste good on so many things.

You get a little bit of the ginger and the lemon and it just makes the fruit taste alive.

That's why I call it fairy dust.

-I see why.

-It's magic.

It's magic.

I love the gingery taste that's in the streusel.

Right?

It's not too much.

-It's not too much.

-Mnh-mnh.

-Elle, this is spectacular.

Thank you.

-My pleasure.

-So if you need to make a pie big enough to serve a crowd, start with a big batch of all-butter pie dough, thicken the filling with ground instant tapioca and top the pie with a ginger lemon streusel.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a foolproof and fabulous recipe for triple berry slab pie with ginger lemon streusel.

I might just make the fairy dust for fun.

-This is going in my belly.

-Whoever came up with the motto "easy as pie" obviously never baked one, because making a good pie requires a little skill and some specialty equipment, which Adam is gonna lay out for us today.

-I am indeed, Julia.

Okay, you know that we love gold-tone bakeware... -Mm-hmm.

-...in the test kitchen.

The Williams Sonoma Goldtouch Nonstick pie plate is the pie plate to beat.

-Mm-hmm.

Okay.

-It's that medium tone that absorbs heat from the oven, but because it's metal, it retains heat.

So it bakes pastry, whether it's homemade or store-bought, graham-cracker crust.

They all come out, like, a beautiful, even golden brown and just crisp enough.

This is $23, and it's a great pie dish.

-Okay.

-Let's move on to pie weights.

-Ooh, controversial.

-When you're blind-baking a pie shell, which is baking it before there's a filling in there, you have to use weights because otherwise it can puff up, it can slump... -Mm-hmm.

-...and the whole thing will shrink, which is not what you want.

-Mnh-mnh.

-So you need pie weights.

-Mm-hmm.

-We tested four different kinds.

These two are just the traditional loose weights.

These are aluminum.

These are ceramic.

These two are more innovative designs.

This is a chain.

-Mm-hmm.

-6 feet long.

-Looks like jewelry.

-This one is a metal disc with these silicone flaps.

-[ Laughs ] -These two were easy to use and easy to store.

But they didn't work all that well.

They really didn't prevent the puffing enough.

-This is not very heavy.

-It's not a lot of weight.

-No.

-So testers much preferred the traditional loose pie weights.

-Mm-hmm.

-These guys, the aluminum ones, work beautifully.

However, these come in packages of 2 3/4 cups for $56.

-[ Whistles ] -So for the 4 cups you need, you're spending $112 on pie weights.

-That's ridiculous.

-The ceramic pie weights also worked really well.

These are the Mrs. Anderson's baking ceramic pie weights.

These were $8 for a package of 1 cup.

So for the 4 cups you need, $32.

We have ourselves some winning pie weights.

Let's move on to rolling pins.

-Aha!

-The days of simple rolling pins are long gone.

In the old days, it's like they were all wood.

-Mm-hmm.

-Handles or no handles.

You're done choosing.

-Yep.

-Now you have to choose a material.

You have to choose the design.

We tested a bunch of them.

I want you to try this metal one.

-Alright.

-It's metal and it's nonstick coated.

And tell me what you think.

We tried these on pastries, both homemade and store-bought.

We also did pizza dough, cookie dough.

-This is super awkward.

It is heavy.

I don't feel like I have any control and I feel like these handles, if I flip them around the wrong side, I'm gonna scrape my knuckles on the counter.

-Testers thought pretty much all the same stuff.

-Yeah.

-This one weighs 2 1/2 pounds and they found that it was too much weight.

It tended to mash the pie dough and it was awkward to use.

-Yeah.

-Why don't you try this guy?

-Alright.

-This is just a plain wooden one.

No handles, you can see.

-Ooh, this is lovely.

-Yeah.

-Actually, I really like this.

Now, my fingers don't go underneath, obviously, but it's -- it's heavy enough and big enough that -- and it's even.

-This one is a pound and a half, which was enough weight to sort of assist and facilitate with the rolling.

But it was still light enough to be maneuverable, and it was easier to roll flat with this one than with this model, which is tapered and it's tapered pretty dramatically.

-It really is.

-It's only got about 4 inches in the center that's flat rolling.

-Mm-hmm.

-So this one tended to roll the pastry unevenly.

-Yeah.

-It was a little thicker at the edges.

-Mm-hmm.

-So this wooden one -- low tech, but it is the rolling pin to beat.

This is the J.K. Adams plain maple rolling dowel.

It's 25 bucks.

And this was the testers' fave.

-Thanks, Adam.

-You're welcome.

-You can find all this information and more at our website.

-Cooking food on a stick is one of the earliest cooking methods, and it's withstood the test of time for good reason.

It's fun.

These days, you'll find all sorts of things cooked on sticks, including desserts.

And today, Sam is gonna show me how to make a cherry pie on a stick.

-That's right, Julia.

You're going to love these pie pops.

When we were developing this recipe, there were two things that we wanted to achieve.

First, a filling that didn't ooze out of the pie pops when we baked them, and secondly, a pie crust that could really hold its structure to those little crimp marks that we're gonna make later on.

-Oh, that makes sense.

-Speaking of, let's get started on our pie crust.

-Okay.

-So here in my food processor, I have 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour.

And to that, I'm going to add one tablespoon of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.

Now, I'm just gonna process this for about five seconds until the dry ingredients are incorporated.

So we have our dry ingredients well mixed.

So we're ready to start adding our fat.

Now, here I have 4 tablespoons of shortening that I've cut into half-inch pieces.

Now, shortening is gonna provide that structure that we're really looking for in our pie crust.

And I'm just gonna scatter them across my dry ingredients.

And I'm just gonna process this for about 10 seconds until it resembles a coarse cornmeal.

And now we're ready to add our second fat.

So I have 6 tablespoons of chilled, unsalted butter that I've cut into quarter-inch pieces.

And I'm gonna scatter this into the food processor.

Rather than process this, I want to pulse it until it resembles coarse crumbs.

Alright.

These are those coarse crumbs that we're looking for, so we're in good shape here.

I'm just gonna transfer this mixture to a big bowl.

And now we're ready to add our water.

-Mm-hmm.

-So I have some ice water here.

And I'm just gonna sprinkle 3 tablespoons over this mixture.

3 tablespoons.

And I'm gonna take my spatula and start to form this into a dough.

This is gonna take a little bit of time.

If you find that it looks a little bit dry, you can add a little bit more water, one teaspoon at a time.

-Mm-hmm.

-But as you can see, this dough is really coming together nicely.

So we formed our dough ball.

And as you can see, it's a pretty wet dough.

-Mm-hmm.

-So now we're gonna let this rest in the refrigerator.

So I have some plastic wrap here.

I'm gonna transfer our pie dough right to the center of our plastic wrap.

Wrap it up, form it into about a 4-inch disc, and take it into the refrigerator for about an hour.

-Alright.

-Let's get started on our pie filling.

-Alright.

-So here I have one cup of cherry preserves.

They have a lot of concentrated cherry flavor.

-Mm-hmm.

-And they're also pretty thick due to the fruit's pectin.

However, we do want to loosen these up a little bit, so we're gonna take this to the microwave for about a minute, stirring it once halfway through.

-Alright.

-Oh, yeah.

That's exactly what we're looking for.

It's nice and fluid.

-Soupy.

-Exactly.

Soupy preserves.

So we're gonna throw this through our fine mesh strainer.

Just like this.

Now I'm gonna take my spatula and press the preserves through the strainer.

So what we're trying to do is look for about a third cup of cherry solids.

I'm gonna transfer our cherry solids to another bowl.

Julia, I'm just gonna set these aside to cool.

-Alright.

-And then we can start to roll out our pie dough.

-Awesome.

-So here I have my pie dough.

It's been sitting out on the counter for about 10 minutes or so... -Mm-hmm.

-...which should make things a little bit easier for us to roll this out.

But I do want to add some flour to our countertop.

-Oh, yeah.

-I'm gonna put some flour on top of the dough as well, just to prevent any potential stickage.

-I like it.

-And then we're gonna roll this out into a 15-inch circle.

You can see all those pieces of fat in there.

Alright.

So we have a 15-inch circle.

So I'm just gonna take my 3-inch biscuit cutter and cut out 16 circles.

-Alright, 16 circles, one on each side.

So eight pie pops.

-Exactly.

And 16.

-With dough to spare.

-[ Laughs ] -Alright, we're gonna remove the scraps.

So I'll transfer our circles to a parchment-lined sheet pan, cover them with plastic wrap, and throw them in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes until they're firm but still pliable.

We've taken our pie rounds out of the refrigerator.

And what I've done here is I've just separated them in half.

So I transferred eight of our discs to another parchment-lined paper.

But now we're ready to add our lollipop sticks.

-Alright.

-What I'm gonna do is take a lollipop stick and center it on our pie crust.

And with my finger just pressing down to ensure that it's stuck to our round and won't fall off when we bake them.

Lollipop stick number eight.

So now we can get to filling our pie pops.

So here I have our reserved cherry solids that have cooled.

So I'm gonna add 2 teaspoons of our cherry pie filling to the center right on top of that popsicle-stick end.

And if you wouldn't mind following me with one teaspoon... -Okay.

-...of bittersweet chocolate chips.

-Alright.

-Alright, Julia, these look great already.

-They do.

-But we do want to throw these in the freezer for about 10 minutes, because we want that filling to set up so that it doesn't spew out when we put the second pie crust right on top.

Our pie pops are out of the freezer, so we're now ready to add the tops of our pie pops.

Now, here I have an egg wash, which is simply just one large egg and one tablespoon of water that I've whisked together with a fork.

And this is gonna act as our glue to the top crust.

-Makes sense.

-So I'm gonna take my pastry brush and carefully brush around the edges of our pie.

And if you get some egg wash on the parchment paper, that's okay.

Voil.

I'll take our reserved pie rounds, and all I'm gonna do is place one right on top and with my fingers just gently adhering around the edge.

Alright.

-Nicely done.

-Pretty cute, huh?

-Yeah.

-Now, there's a couple more things we do need to do before we get these into the oven.

The first thing we want to do is take our fork and make some really nice little crimps around the outside.

-Ahh.

-Now, this is doing two things.

It's going to ensure that that seal is completely sealed, because we don't want that pie filling to come out of the edges.

But it also looks really cute.

-It looks really cute.

-It looks so cute.

The next thing we want to do is cut some little slits into the tops of our pie pop.

So I have a paring knife here.

I'm gonna carefully cut three half-inch slits across the top of each pie.

These pie slits are going to allow steam to come out of the pies when they bake off, because otherwise we're gonna get a soggy bottom.

And I don't know about you, but I don't want that.

-[ Chuckling ] -Last but not least, we want to use the rest of our remaining egg wash and brush it right on top so that when we bake these off, they'll be nice and golden brown.

So now we're ready to start baking.

-Okay.

-So I have my oven set to 375 degrees with the oven rack set in the upper-middle position.

And we're just gonna bake these for about 25 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through.

-Oh!

-Look at that.

-They smell delicious.

-They sure do.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Oh, me, oh, my.

They're bubbly, golden and exactly what we're looking for.

Now, we do want to let these sit on our sheet pan to cool for about 10 minutes, and then we're gonna very carefully transfer them to a wire rack so they can finish cooling for about another hour.

-Okay.

-Julia, our pie pops have fully cooled, which is great, but there is one more thing we need to do.

So here I have that reserved cherry liquid from when we strained our preserves earlier.

So we're gonna turn this into a glaze to drizzle right on top of our pie pops.

-I like it.

-I have 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar.

And I'm gonna start by adding 2 tablespoons of that cherry liquid.

And I have the cutest little whisk here... -You really do.

-...to turn this into a glaze.

Now, we're just looking for a very drizzle-able consistency.

So if I lift my whisk up, you can see... -Perfect.

-...we're right there.

Here I have a cute little piping bag made out of parchment paper... -Mm-hmm.

-...just to give us some clean lines.

Alright.

So I'll take my scissors, cut the tip off of the pastry bag, and we should be ready to drizzle.

-Alright.

-Just in one quick, swift motion.

So I'm gonna continue to glaze the rest of our pie pops, and then we're gonna let that glaze set for about 10 minutes, and then we can finally eat.

-Yay!

-It's the moment we've all been waiting for.

Time to finally eat these cherry pie pops.

-Oh, which one am I gonna pick?

-I'm gonna take this one.

-Nice.

Alright.

The true test is if it stays on the stick when you eat it.

-[ Laughs ] We'll see.

-[ Laughs ] You sound so confident.

Mmm!

That pie dough is flaky.

You can actually see how flaky it is.

But it's holding together and it's staying on the stick.

-It's staying on the stick.

And you can taste that chocolate mixed with the cherry.

-Mm-hmm.

-It's such a wonderful combination.

-Mm-hmm.

-I love the glaze on top.

It's kind of like a sophisticated pop tart.

-It is.

Sam, these are delicious.

Thank you.

-You're welcome.

-So if you want to make these adorable cherry pies, start by making a pie dough in the food processor with shortening and butter.

Strain warm cherry preserves for the filling, and assemble and bake the mini pies around a lollipop stick.

From "America's Test Kitchen," a whimsical and delicious recipe for chocolate cherry pie pops.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our product reviews and select episodes at our website -- americastestkitchen.com/tv.

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