Nathan asked for a Pewdiepie themed birthday party this year and no such party would be complete without a Pewdiepie Pie. The birthday boy suggested a "bro fist" and PMC accepted the challenge. The pie would be apple and needed to serve 15-20, so equivalent to about two regular 9" pies.
I sketched the iconic bro fist (thank-you Google image search) on the floor of a baking pan in Sharpie:
and built up the contour with slanted sides in regular clay
which was then covered in aluminum foil
and lined with regular pie dough.
I was worried about the difference in thermal conductivity of the metal and the clay and thought baking the bottom crust blind before filling might be prudent. (Line pan with pastry and cover the pastry with foil. Fill cavity with pie weights---I use dry navy beans which I keep for reuse. Bake at 425F for 25 minutes. Remove weights and foil and return to oven for about 10 minutes to brown crust.) I made enough filling for two pies, filled the still-warm bottom crust, topped the pie and decorated.
Apple pie is lumpy and pie dough puffs and shifts on baking and none of this makes for easy sculptural effects. As you can see, the result didn't exactly scream "bro fist", but a little paint (slightly diluted red food colouring)---and being six feet directly above the pie---made all the difference. Hard to tell from the picture, but the thumb nail is sugar crust. Also hard to tell from the picture is how delicious the pie was!
The bottom and top crust were well baked and browned and the pie cut just fine, but the sides were still a little softer than I would have liked. If I had to do it again, when baking the bottom crust blind, I would take out most of weights after 25 minutes, pull the foil away from the sides (which will have baked enough not to collapse), return the pan to the oven for 10-15 minutes and then remove the rest of the weights and foil and give it a final 10 minutes. This would allow the sides to be fully cooked and more deeply browned before filling the pie at which point browning of that part of the crust clearly stops. The hot filling steams the side crust, which is up against the clay dam, whereas the bottom crust keeps browning on the outside, where it is in contact with the metal pan. (This is assuming I don't go into business making countless bro fist pies, in which case I would first have metal pans custom made in the correct shape and not have to prebake the crust at all.)
Happy 12th Birthday, Nate! Keep being awesome, like I know you will bro'. Love, Dad.
