Pie Molds : The Do’s and Don’ts
Everybody loves to eat, at home, in cafe and restaurants; especially in receptions and large gatherings when there are occasions to celebrate. Oftentimes, there a lot of food served on the table and some of these are not even familiar. Food lovers will try to find out what they are, even the ways on how these foods were prepared and cooked, as well as the utensils where it was cooked, and that’s how we come to know the different tools and molds used for cooking. One of these molds is the one used for making pies, the pie molds.
A pie is a dish that is baked or fried, usually made following the recipe for pastry dough containing delicious fillings of different ingredients such as cheese, fruits, meats and vegetables. It may either consist of single crust, which means a pie without a cover and double or two crusts, or a pie with crusts covering the fillings completely. It can also be classified according to how the fillings were placed in between the mold and the dough. They can either be “filled” or “open pie”, where a pie recipe is placed on the mold, covered by dough and the filling on top of the dough; “top-crust,” where the filling is placed on the mold and covered with the dough and “two-crust” or “double-crusted” where the filling is completely covered with the dough, both top and bottom sides, before baking or frying. It can be made into different sizes and shapes, from small square and rectangle pieces, to large round ones that can make multiple slices serving several people.
Pie pans, unlike cupcake molds, are flat-bottomed pans with flare at the sides and are specifically designed solely for baking pies. These are made of materials such as steel, aluminum, tin and silicone. There are pie molds that are non-stick ones like the one made from silicone but tin and aluminum can be brushed with a coating of non-stick material to serve the purpose. When these are used, pies will easily come out of the container, eliminate stubborn particles from staying at the edges and prevent the pie from sticking on the mold destroying its appearance. There are also molds made for bringing out the intricate lattice work for big large pies and even for the tiny pocket pies. Other molds will already bring out a braided appearance of your pie and will bring out your masterpiece unscathed because of the easy removal feature such as those in a triangular meat pie mold where two pins are located at the two opposite angles of the mold for quick removal, bringing out the pie instantly, deliciously fresh from the oven.