Checking a pie for doneness can be a difficult business. This is specifically real for double crust pies (due to the fact that whatever’s concealed on the within). Taking your pastry covered shell out of the oven prior to it’s prepared through can cause watery or raw outcomes, and you might have discovered yourself thinking about a tool like a pie bird to indicate when your pie is all set. Sorry to break the news, however pie birds aren’t actually doing much at all besides looking alarmed.
Pie birds are typically hollow, bird-shaped ceramic tubes that nest the middle of a pie. They’ve likewise been called pie chimneys, which is a little bit more detailed, specifically because they weren’t constantly bird formed. They’re from a time, long earlier, when they maybe served numerous functions, like venting a double-crusted pie while physically supporting extensive, feast-sized pie crusts, helping with unequal heating in wood burning ovens, or accelerating cooking by offering a heat conductor in the center of a large, or largely filled meat pie.
The bird, or chimney, nestles into the center of the pie filling, standing out about an inch or two, with the leading crust curtained over it. The pie bird pokes through, creepily, and the chef seals the upper crust around the edges and comfortably around the bird. The entire thing enters the oven up until steam begins gushing from the pie bird/chimney. The heavy circulation of steam signals that the staying water in the filling has actually reached its boiling point of 212°F in the center of the pie, not unlike a tea kettle whistling. The chef sees the steam and understands the pie is done.
With contemporary ovens, unequal cooking is no longer much of a concern, and basic pie plates lean towards a really workable 9- or 10-inch size, so pie crusts don’t require additional assistance, and cooking through to the center prior to the outdoors burns isn’t much of a battle. The pie bird isn’t doing all of that other practical things, however it’s still working to vent the pie and appear in steam. That’s charming. The thing is, you don’t require a pie bird to vent your pie or reveal you steam. Pies do require vents so the steam can get away in a regulated way, otherwise the pastry can rip, and all of the filling break out the sides and onto the bottom of your oven. Vents are simply openings in the upper crust, and nowadays we frequently vent with ornamental patterns, like a lattice top, a circular cut-out, or a couple of basic cuts in the center.
Checking for doneness in a pie is usually as simple as observing some signals and setting yourself up with some “windows” so you can see more clearly. I like a literal window for the bottom crust, so I always use a clear pie dish. For the top crust, cut a decent-sized, circular vent in the center so you can see when the filling is bubbling. As the pie bakes, look at the bottom pastry of the pie and check to see how browning is coming along. When you notice an even brownness across the crust, you can start paying more attention to the vents. Check the vents for steam, and bubbling filling. The edges will begin to bubble, and you’ll know the center will be coming along shortly. If your filling is bubbling in the center, you’re as good as a pie bird.
For pies fillings that are low in hydration, like meat or vegetable pies, it could be hard to see the steam coming through the vents, or you might not want the meat to cook to the quite high temperature of 212℉. In this case, use a meat thermometer, or probe thermometer. Poke the reader down through the center vent that you made sure to cut, and get an accurate temperature. As long as the pastry is browned to your liking, you can take out the pie at simply the right moment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a supporter of collecting and safely using vintage kitchen items, even if they’re unwieldy and semi-useless. I’d never criticize your bold display of pie birds along the window sill. You simply don’t actually require them in your pie.
