A great recipe for a flavorful pear pie.

gistfile1.txt

AWESOME PEAR PIE
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Ingredients:

Crust:

  * Your favorite 9" double crust pastry recipe (I use the one in the Better
    Homes and Gardens cook book)

Filling:

  * 1/2 c white sugar
  * 3 tbl all-purpose flour
  * 1/4 tsp salt
  * 2 tsp cinnamon
  * 5 c peeled, sliced ripe pears
  * 1 tbl butter

Crust Topping:

  * 1 tbl milk
  * 2 tsp white sugar
  * 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Combine sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.
2. Toss pears with the sugar mixture until blended.
3. Pour pears into pie crust (9" pastry pan).
4. Dot with butter.
5. Place top crust over filling, fold edge under bottom crust, flute edge, etc.
6. Brush crust with milk.
7. In a small bowl, mix 2 tsp sugar with 1/2 tsp cinnamon.
8. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon mixture evenly over pie crust.
9. Bake at 450 F for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 F and bake for 35 to 40
   more minutes, until crust is lightly browned and filling is bubbling.

Tips:

* Use *ripe* pears. If the pears aren't ripe enough, your pie won't have much pear
  flavor, and you'll wind up with a rather unexciting "cinnamon" pie. It's a trade-off,
  though. Too ripe, and the pears are too soft. Not ripe enough, and the pears have no
  flavor. Perhaps this is why pear pie isn't more common.
* If you aren't as fond of cinnamon as I am, reduce the cinnamon in the filling to 1 tsp.
* I think the pie tastes best cold, with a dollop of whipped cream on top, but I'm just
  weird that way.

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SINGLE SERVING VARIATION
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It's fun to experiment with pies, but can quickly get tedious when you have five pies
in the refrigerator. Thus, you can try this pear pie with a small 4" or 5" aluminum pie
pan. Just reduce the ingredients as follows:

* For the crust, reduce it to 1/4 the original. If you're using the BHG book, that works out to:
  - 1/2 c flour
  - 1/8 tsp + 1/16 tsp salt
  - 2 tbl + 2 tsp shorting
  - 6-8 tsp water

For the filling:
  - 5 tsp sugar
  - 2 tsp flour
  - 1/16 tsp salt
  - 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  - 1 c pears
  - 1/2 tsp butter

Bake for 5 minutes at 450 F, and then 20 minutes at 350 F.