This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe comes from Baking with Dorie. Double-Pear Picnic Pie is a double-crusted LARGE pie – two things I rarely make (I avoid double crusts if possible because they are fussy and I most often minify large desserts like this) but a Thanksgiving dinner for 9 people where I was asked to bring a dessert was the perfect opportunity to make a full-sized version of this with the bonus of having some extra time to work with the crust over the long weekend.
Nothing about this is very difficult, it’s more that the pastry takes time and the large size of the pie itself makes it a bit unwieldy but if you have the time, it comes together really quickly.
The crust is made with sour cream and butter which produces a flaky pastry that is melt-in-your-mouth. I made this the day before I needed it and brought it to room temperature for about 15 minutes before I rolled it. It was a LOT of pastry to roll but I managed (it’s lovely and soft and rolls easily).
The filling is fresh and dried pears (I used dried apples), pumpkin pie spices, some sugar, lemon zest and juice and a bit of apricot jam. The top of the pie is brushed with cream or milk then sprinkled with turbinado or demerara sugar before baking for some extra crunch.
The pie itself is baked in a quarter sheet pan (one of the most useful pans I have in my collection!) which gives you a large but not too deep pie. Mine took an extra 5 minutes to bake because I wanted to make sure the bottom was properly cooked (its hard to tell). Dorie calls for flipping the pie out of the pan (no thank you!) but I lined my pan with parchment and left some overhang so it lifted out of the pan beautifully and easily.
Result? A beautiful, flavourful pie that cute beautifully and was a crowd pleased with whipped cream (not pictured) at a Thanksgiving gathering. This made 9 substantial slices but could easily have served many many more in smaller pieces. A winner – and I’ll be trying that pastry again for sure!
Get the recipe for Double Pear Picnic Pie on p 266 of Baking with Dorie.
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This was indeed a winner – and a perfect dessert after a Thanksgioving meal.
looks so good, and so nice for thanksgiving! i don’t bake with pears enough…
Oh yum… I can taste it. May be a bit beyond me yet but… perhaps in the future?
Your pie looks fab. I loved this one too.
Oh my gosh, your pie looks so good!
This is definitely a winner! I did make half a recipe, using a mixture of pears and apples. I would certainly make it again.
What a great celebration to have this pie! I didn’t even think to combine pear and apple haha..I just went all apple since I didn’t know where to find dried pears hahaha
Wow your pie came out beautifully! I am glad you had a crowd to feed with this one. Happy Thanksgiving.
Mardi, your pie is gorgeous, both inside and outside! I’m sure everyone felt very loved and special getting that pie on Thanksgiving. It was a delicious pie and definitely repeat worthy for us. I totally agree on that sheet pan being one of the most frequently used pans in my kitchen for all sorts of reasons…so handy when there are just two of us here now. I made a note in my book to try the recipe in this pan for our Thanksgiving and your notes about it. At Thanksgiving there are a lot of extra people to eat it up!