Hidden in the third step of EmilyC's recipe for Gingered Cranberry Pear Pie is a brilliant tip we might just apply to every pie from here on out: Roll out the dough in a pile of crushed cookies.
It's fitting that Emily uses gingersnap crumbs in her pie, which is filled with cranberries that have been simmered with ginger (and a lot of it: 1/2 cup, thinly sliced), but you could use any kind of cookie crumbs that fit with your pie's flavor profile.
The original tip, in fact, comes from Martha Stewart, who rolls the dough for her buttermilk pie in graham cracker crumbs. And, raring to experiment, I recently made Erin McDowell's Buttermilk Sweet Potato Pie but rolled the dough in pulverized Saltines.
"It’s the perfect solution when you can’t decide between a pastry and gingersnap crust"—or any crumb crust, for that matter—"and the crumbs make the dough a breeze to roll out," says Emily. (You don't have to use any flour!)
Rolling the dough in crumbs also adds more texture (ensuring a crisp, snappy crust, but one that doesn't shatter apart like a typical crumb shell), and also provides an obvious opportunity to introduce another flavor (seasoning your pie dough with spices or chopped herbs is also an option, of course).
There are as many types of cookies (and crackers, and other crunchy-crumblies) as there are pies, which means that the possibilities for pairing a crumb-coated crust with your favorite pie are, well, infinite. Here are a few ideas we're excited to try:
- Biscoff + sour cream-raisin
- Pretzels + peanut butter
- Ritz crackers + lemon meringue
- Cheese crackers + apple (or a savory, greens-filled galette; or a quiche!)
- Chocolate wafers + mud or chocolate cream
- Nilla wafers + banana cream
- Animal crackers + rhubarb or Concord grape
- Amaretti + pear
- Pulverized granola + maple cream
And would I use crushed Tate's cookies, bake and cool the crust, then fill it with David Lebovitz's Chocolate Sorbet? A resounding yes.
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Written by: Sarah Jampel
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