Melissa Elsen Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Apple Pie, a new miniseries on She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.”
In this miniseries, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes and get the scoop on all things fall baking and apples. My guest today is Melissa Elsen. Melissa is the owner of Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn. Melissa founded the pie shop in 2009 with her sister Emily, and they quickly became known for inventive seasonal pie flavors and a devotion to excellent crusts and old-fashioned pie techniques. If you've ever had a slice of their pie, you know why it's such a New York institution. Melissa is also the co-author of “The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book,” which features 60-plus seasonal pie recipes and explains their approach to crust and filling. I literally learned to make pie crust from their book, as their recipe is fantastic. With so many great tips and tricks for pie making success, Melissa joins me to talk about her childhood in South Dakota, including time spent in her family's restaurant, playing office no less, with her sister Emily, her grandmother Liz, and her famous cream pies and more. Then she walks me through her New York Orchard Apple Pie, a special seasonal pie that's available at the bakery now through the end of October. It's her take on a classic apple pie made with New York apples and the perfect blend of autumnal spices and finished with a buttery crumb topping. Melissa shares all of her pie dough tips and tricks, including buttering your pie plate and adding a little flour and sugar to the bottom of the crust before it gets filled. She tells us about which apple varieties are the best for baking, and how to macerate them pre-bake for flexibility when building your pie, and how to get picture-perfect pies every time you bake. I loved chatting with Melissa, so stay tuned. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com.
Today's episode is presented by Yes! Apples, a brand redefining how we experience one of nature's most iconic fruits. It's a collective of more than 50 New York family farms with roots in the industry dating back to 1919, all dedicated to growing apples with exceptional flavor, crisp texture, and sustainable integrity. What makes them stand out even more is that they're a woman-founded brand and a woman-owned company, which means a lot to us here at Cherry Bombe. Their mission is to bring New York's finest apples to tables nationwide and to remind just how extraordinary an apple can be. In this episode, we're talking about Four & Twenty Blackbirds' October pie of the month, the New York Orchard Pie made with Yes! Apples, Cortland, McIntosh, and Honeycrisp varieties. You can try a slice at the beloved Brooklyn bakery or bake it yourself at home. Yes! Apples teamed up with Four & Twenty Blackbirds to create the special pie and a limited-edition New York Orchard Pie box featuring the same trio of apples and the recipe to make it yourself, the perfect combo for pie perfection. You can find the New York Orchard Pie Box at yesapples.com so you can make this pie at home, and for the very first time, you can get the New York Orchard Pie Box on Walmart.com, where Yes! Apples just launched this season. If you're shopping in person, find a full list of retailers near you at yesapples.com.
Peeps, did you hear the news? Jubilee New York 2026 is happening on Saturday, April 25th, at The Glasshouse in Manhattan, and early bird tickets are on sale now. Jubilee is Cherry Bombe's annual conference celebrating women and creatives in the world of food and drink. It'll be a beautiful day of connection and community, plus delicious bites and sips. You'll meet other thoughtful food folks and be inspired by the featured speakers, panelists, and more. I had such a great time at this past year's event, and I know next year's will somehow be bigger and better. Early bird tickets are on sale now through December 31st. If you're an official Bombesquad member or a paid Substack subscriber, be sure to use your discount code at checkout. You can find it in your inbox or on our Substack website. Head to cherrybombe.com for all the details. I hope to see you there.
Let's chat with today's guest. Melissa, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk New York Orchard Apple Pie with you and so much more.
Melissa Elsen:
Oh, well, thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.
Jessie Sheehan:
You were surrounded by a lot of baking when you were growing up in South Dakota due to the restaurant your mom ran and the pies that your grandmother Liz baked there, but I read it is actually like a rhubarb pie that brings you straight back to childhood. Can you tell us about that pie?
Melissa Elsen:
Sure, absolutely. Well, rhubarb, I think it's one of the only things that we had in South Dakota growing up. Fruit isn't really cultivated out there. I think that rhubarb originates from, at least what I've heard is from Siberia, which that gives you some idea of what South Dakota's like. It was always really exciting when rhubarb finally came into season, started to grow, and so it was just a really big deal to us Dakotans. And so yeah, when my grandma would make rhubarb pie... And she also had the rhubarb that still grows in both my parents' houses. It's really a beautiful red rhubarb. And I remember rhubarb pie, but I also really remember rhubarb crisp, which my mom would make.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum.
Melissa Elsen:
And I really specifically remember this. So she would make the oat, it was an oat base with an oat topping, and she would mix that up first and it was meant to do both things, be the bottom and the top, but I would always try to eat it before it was ready and she would always be telling me not to because it was just enough. It was just enough to make the bottom and the top, but I'd always want to sneak little bits of the big chunks of buttery oat crumble-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, deliciousness.
Melissa Elsen:
We always called it rhubarb crunch actually, but a rhubarb crisp, and then we would always put evaporated milk over the top of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. I have a question about the crisp because I don't think of crisps as having a bottom crust.
Melissa Elsen:
Oh yeah, my mom's did.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Melissa Elsen:
So, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And would you just kind of spoon it out or were you trying to slice it out?
Melissa Elsen:
You would spoon it out. Yeah, it was...yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my gosh, I love that idea. Your mom is a genius, I already know. I also know that a favorite after-school snack for you and your sister was the leftover pudding from your grandmother Liz's cream pies.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you have early memories of that and do you remember the flavors that you loved?
Melissa Elsen:
Well, she made, the typical cream pies that she made was, there was a coconut cream, there was a sour cream lemon, which is in our book actually, so in homage to that particular combination. And then there was also sour cream raisin. So yeah, it would've been any of those. When you're making pie filling, there's always a little bit left. Sometimes there's just a little more than what can fit into the shell. So yeah, the coconut cream was really a favorite, obviously.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that so much. Is there an early baking memory for you when you were either helping Liz or helping your mom?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I would say that the rhubarb crunch is definitely an early memory of helping out and being there when that was happening. And then otherwise, I think we just grew up around food preparation constantly by being in the restaurant. We would go there in the morning for breakfast before school. I mean, I'm from a very, very small town. It's a 10-minute walk to the restaurant, a five-minute walk to school. So we spent a lot of time there, and so it was always just happening. And my grandmother was always there in the back, or if she wasn't baking then she was sitting down reading the newspaper. So you were just hanging out with her. And then it was just where we spent all our free time, if mom was working, if dad was working.
Jessie Sheehan:
So I was going to say, that we cannot talk about your South Dakota childhood without talking about the Calico Kitchen, the restaurant and community gathering place that your mom ran with her two sisters and where Liz baked her pies and basically your second home when you and Emily were growing up. I read this and I loved it so much, not only did I read that it was your second home, but it was like a playground for your creativity. Can you unpack that?
Melissa Elsen:
We were, like you said, we were always there, so whether it was like you took the big toilet paper boxes and took them out to the back, build houses out of them-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that memory.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. Or we used to often, we liked to play, we called it office, so we'd take some of the office paperwork out of the garbage and we'd pretend like we were running a business, or we were just always there. And it was a different time, the late '80s, early '90s, and we were again in a very small town. We really had to entertain ourselves. And then when we got a little older, definitely we got to mess around with ingredients and stuff a little bit. They didn't want us making too much of a mess, but they definitely, my mom would let us mess around with things.
Jessie Sheehan:
So tell us about some of your jobs at the restaurant. I know that as soon as you were old enough you were washing dishes, then graduated to waiting tables and then graduated to making pie with Liz. Is that fair?
Melissa Elsen:
Definitely dishwashing for sure, that was, especially on the weekends, all of the children of the family were enlisted to help out at the restaurant. We were the extra labor force. So yeah, definitely started there. And then yes, we did also do waitressing. We never actually helped my grandma make the pies, but it was just kind of more like the environment of it being around and being there. So we definitely waitressed and then we ended up eventually when you were old enough, you could actually be the cook helper, help whoever was in charge for the day on the weekends mostly, just do whatever they needed to do.
Jessie Sheehan:
So that's interesting. So you guys actually never were baking pies when you were working at Calico Kitchen?
Melissa Elsen:
No, I think the inspiration for the company and the pie and everything really just comes more from the idea of it. Even our recipes aren't necessarily straight up our grandmother's recipes. We wanted to refresh things and put our own spin on them and our more modern take on things, but it's more just the inspiration of her and all of... And how much people loved them, I guess too.
A story I always like to tell is that it's a rural area, so there'd be a delivery drivers driving from town to town, whether it was the Coke delivery guy or the food service delivery guy, and they always wanted our grandma's pies, so they would always get a slice of pie from the restaurant, so it was like a destination for them.
Jessie Sheehan:
We'll be right back.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi everybody, it's Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder of Cherry Bombe and the host of Radio Cherry Bombe. In case you hadn't heard, Cherry Bombe is on Substack. If you're a Substack lover like me, be sure to check it out and subscribe. You can subscribe for free or become a monthly or annual paid subscriber. Each Saturday, we post a recap of She's My Cherry Pie plus all the fun baking news of the week. We also have recipes, the Cherry Bombe Friday newsletter and special features from Cherry Bombe's Print magazine, like the Missy Robbins cover story from our Italy issue. If you're new to Substack, think about it as the home of modern blogs. If you love reading, writing recipes, it's the place for you. Visit cherrybombe.substack.com.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, back to our guest.
This is really an important piece of the story of Calico Kitchen, that your mom ran it with her sisters. So Liz's children essentially ran the restaurant. I know you said you weren't actually maybe making the pies, it was more the idea of the place that inspired you and Emily to open the bakery. I feel like if you grow up in a family business where sisters are working together to create something, probably it made absolute sense to you guys that you and Emily would do something together.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I think it was definitely a very natural, obviously, yes, the whole sister business. And then growing up in a small town, people there are entrepreneurial by nature anyway, and my family, most of... My dad's an independent farmer, my uncle owned the service station, so everybody I kind of grew up looking up to, they kind of did their own thing. So I guess it was just natural to be entrepreneurial in that way.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. I love that. Post-college, you guys both eventually landed in Brooklyn, where Emily already was and started baking pies for dinner parties and friends were encouraging you to pursue it professionally, which you actually did in 2009 by baking pies in your Crown Heights apartment. At that point, was it custom orders, word of mouth? Friends would just, through the grapevine, people knew you were making really delicious pies.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, exactly. So I guess I moved here in 2009 and there wasn't a lot of work available. It was recession time, so I was doing odd jobs and stuff. And I think one of the reasons I studied business is because, thinking that maybe I'd do something on my own someday, but I will say that even when I was in college, and they would be like, "What kind of business would you like to start?" And I would be like... The only thing I could think of was a food business. And then I was like, was that just because that's what I know? But there's also that saying, "Do what you know."
But I also was like, "Oh, I know how much hard work it is. It's long days. It's just a lot of labor." And I also liked doing it as a hobby, and I was like, "Am I going to ruin this thing that I like to do by making it into my work?" But we started doing that kind of as a side gig, and mostly because it was fun, it was fun, it was exciting, it was fun to think of new ideas, and neither of us are professionally trained in any way. And I've said this before, but just because we grew up in the restaurant doesn't mean we knew how to run a restaurant. We really had to learn that the hard way, and I'm still learning it every day.
Jessie Sheehan:
In 2010, you guys opened Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Your grandmother, Liz, died right before the bakery opened. You opened it because to you guys what you were seeing in Brooklyn or New York City at the time, no one was focusing exclusively on pies, homemade seasonal ones, and it seems like it was just the natural order of things that you should go into business with Emily, your sister. I had a question about did you ever fantasize about having a business with Emily, but because of that story of you playing office in the back of the restaurant, I feel like there was always from using the paper from the garbage, I love that so much.
So tell us about the vibe of the bakery, which obviously has changed over the almost two decades that it's been opened. And also tell us about picking its name, because I feel like that story fits very much with your and Emily's style and vibe and ethos in a way.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, the picking of the name was really difficult. So I'd only been in New York for a couple of months when we kind of started talking about doing this, and I was like, "We're not ready yet." But then I guess it wasn't too much longer, it was the end of 2009 when we signed the lease and we decided to go ahead and try this out.
Our mother's husband's mother owns a little bookshop, a used bookstore back in South Dakota, and she's a very literary person, and she suggested we look to nursery rhymes where we landed on Four & Twenty Blackbirds and we liked it because it's kind of... First of all, if you know it, then you know it and it's memorable. And if you don't know what it means, which a lot of people don't, then you're kind of like, what does it mean? So it's intriguing. But it's light and dark. Nursery rhymes, definitely, when you really read them they have a lot of weird macabre things going on.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us what it means in case we don't know?
Melissa Elsen:
So it's, "Sing a song of six pence, a pocketful of rye, four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie." So I guess that's something they used to do in medieval times. They would bake things, it was part of a performance thing, they would bake live things into a dough and then they would come bursting out, part of the entertainment.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow, I don't even think I knew that. So your parents were incredibly supportive and gave you tons of great advice and obviously contributed to the bakery's success and your grandmother Liz's style and approach to pie making totally influenced the bakery even if they weren't exactly her recipes. Can you tell us a little bit about how you feel like her style influenced the bakery?
Melissa Elsen:
I think it would mostly be the seasonality concept, which for her, I guess was just the logical way to do it. So rhubarb would be summertime, it would come from her garden, but I'm sure it came from other people in town as well, because if she needed to keep up with the volume, I'm sure people just... I know they did, they would drop it off at the restaurant. And then apples too, that's the one other thing that we can get out in the Dakotas is apples. So she would make apple pies with local apples and then pumpkin in the fall. And I remember always wanting pumpkin. I loved pumpkin pie when I was a kid. I think I liked that texture and wanting it in the summertime, and they'd be like, "Well, no, we're not making it right now." So I think seasonality and just freshness and just high quality, those are the pretty basic, but yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
How would you describe the vibe of Four & Twenty Blackbirds?
Melissa Elsen:
It's just not our way as being kind of that cutesy bakery, pastel colors, and there's a lot of black and white, all our branding is black and white, and the bakery itself, or at the shop, was the bakery when we first opened, everything happened in that one tiny 800 square foot space. When we renovated it, we found the old tin, which was so neat and old Brooklyn-ey and-
Jessie Sheehan:
Tin on the ceiling or on the walls?
Melissa Elsen:
Tin on the walls.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, so cool.
Melissa Elsen:
All the walls were covered with sheet rock, which was a nice, clean space. But then we poked a little hole and then we were like, "Oh my God, there's tin back here." So that was really fun. So it really creates a very, feels like it's always been there vibe, which is also kind of what we were going for. Lots of wood, very rustic.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then just briefly, I want to talk about your beautiful cookbook, which is really special, like pie Bible for those of us that own it, I think. And you got that cookbook deal within two years of opening the restaurant, so early. Were you guys pursued by someone who said, or were you guys like, "Please let me write a cookbook."
Melissa Elsen:
No, we got interest right away. And I think somebody actually came to us with a preemptive thing and, "If you write a cookbook, we'll give you this much money." And I probably was like, "Oh wow." I think Emily is a little more... She was like, "We can do better than that."
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, good for her.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, she's not afraid. But also, I remember thinking to myself, "We've only been in business for a year, we don't even..." Specifically, I remember saying, and this is the truth, we didn't even have the recipes written down hardly. They were on scratch paper. We had these little yellow notepads that had little stuff written on them. In the early, early days when we were making fruit pie, there wasn't even a recipe. I'd just count on my hand to make sure I had the five things in it, which was the salt, the sugar, the thickener, the spices, and a little bit of lemon juice. And I'd be like, "Did I put all those five things in there with the fruit? Okay, great. We're good."
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh my God, I love that. Very scrappy.
Melissa Elsen:
It was very scrappy. It was very DIY. A little naive for sure. We were 26 and 28, so we were just, you know?
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it, honey, so good. Now we're going to talk about the recipe for your New York Orchard Apple Pie. It's a classic apple pie made with New York apples, a perfect blend of autumnal spices finished with a buttery crumb topping. And I have to say I love crumb topping.
Melissa Elsen:
Yes, me too.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's my fave, partly because it's easy, and second of all, I just love crumb topping.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, well that goes back to the crumble, that, or picking the crumb off of a baked cake a coffee cake or something. I was always terrible for that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, totally. So this pie calls for your all-butter crust, and I read this, I wonder if this is true, I read that Emily contributed to the sculptural look of the classic Four & Twenty pie, maybe that large crimp, but you were the one who tweaked the recipe over and over again, and was it your idea, peeps, get ready. This is like a mind-blowing addition to the crust that they do at Four & Twenty, was it your idea to add the apple cider vinegar?
Melissa Elsen:
I'm guessing that I got that idea probably from an old cookbook, especially a title of cookbook that we always use a lot is The Farm Journal, which I think, I don't know if you'd even be able to find those out here in the Northeast. You probably could. I don't know where to look, but you could find them in thrift stores or secondhand. I loved reading those, this very basic, just text only, no photos, just old cookbooks that would've been compilations from The Farm Journal Magazine. So I probably found that in there. So reading old cookbooks, that was always just a lot of fun and trying to find unique weird things, things that were novel if they made sense, not novelty, just for the sake of novelty. And so yeah, so I was like, "Well, that makes sense to me," because obviously having a little bit of acid in anything, in any cooking, but in baked goods as well, you need it for flavor balance. So I always just thought, I don't know, it was just logical to me.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah. Do you think it also plays a role like vodka plays? Is there an idea that you can add a little bit more liquid, making the crust a little bit easier to deal with, but eventually it's going to bake off in the oven leaving you with a flaky crust?
Melissa Elsen:
I mean, that's part of the idea, I think. I mean, I am not a food scientist.
Jessie Sheehan:
Nor am I. Nor am I.
Melissa Elsen:
I don't know, but I'd like to believe that that's happening. And I also just like the way it smells.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too.
Melissa Elsen:
I like when you smell the dough, the raw dough, and you can smell that little-
Jessie Sheehan:
Well, ever since I got your cookbook, I've been making my pie dough with apple cider vinegar, and I love the way it smells.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. Yes. That alone is-
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it true that Emily played the role in the structural part of how the pie looked from her artistic background and you were more in the weeds of the testing and testing and testing?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, it's so interesting.
Melissa Elsen:
I mean, she's definitely being an art school graduate has more of, she has a very strong aesthetic sense. I mean, I do too. I really care about the way things look, and we both enjoy that, but Emily's definitely more.
Jessie Sheehan:
So first things first, we're going to make the crust, so we're going to stir or toss together, and toss together, I assume means with our hands, some all-purpose unbleached flour. What brand do you guys like?
Melissa Elsen:
In the bakery, we use King Arthur.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to toss together or stir some King Arthur flour, some kosher salt, which is going to add a little bit of flavor, some granulated sugar, which you guys are using for browning and we're going to stir this together in a large flat-bottom bowl so that it's stable. So two questions. First of all, if we're not using our hands, when you say stir, should we picture a whisk? Would you whisk this together at this stage?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. You could whisk, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then is there a type of bowl or is it just restaurant supply?
Melissa Elsen:
I mean, typically I have actually a really nice collection of old farm pottery bowls, but I never reach for those, I always just use a metal bowl because it's easy, it's easy to wash.
Jessie Sheehan:
Totally.
Melissa Elsen:
And I don't have a dishwasher in my apartment, so I got to wash everything by hand.
Jessie Sheehan:
You want us to find butter like the highest fat possible, unsalted. What brand?
Melissa Elsen:
Obviously, Kerrygold is very good butter.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, so cold, unsalted, highest fat butter, 82% or more. We're going to cut that into half-inch pieces. When you're cutting butter, are you using a bench scraper, using a chef's knife?
Melissa Elsen:
A bench scraper usually works the best.
Jessie Sheehan:
A bench scraper. Yeah, I always used a bench scraper from my bakery days. We're going to slice up the butter with a bench scraper. And you say that after we cut it, we're going to put it back in the fridge before using, just so it's really, really cold.
Melissa Elsen:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. And then with a bench scraper, once the butter is really cold, we are going to cut the butter into the flour really quickly. Why do we use a bench scraper right now?
Melissa Elsen:
I think just to make sure you break up, because sometimes the butter's in a mass kind of, and then you can just really get them, each piece individual and a little bit individually coated with flour.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. And then we're going to change over to a pastry blender. Once we've done that. Is there a brand of pastry blender or bench scraper that you guys like?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, typically the OXO ones, they have a good handle. They're ergonomic to hold onto.
Jessie Sheehan:
So then we're going to break that up, bench scraper first, then pastry cutter till the mixture looks like corn meal, but they're still pea-sized pieces of butter that are still remaining. And then in a large measuring cup, like a two-cup Pyrex, should I picture?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or a small bowl. Small bowls, are they just small metal bowls from restaurant supply?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, yeah, or whatever you have.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Yep. In a small bowl, we're going to combine some cold water, some apple cider vinegar, which relaxes the gluten, adds a little tang, tenderizes and some ice, and then we're going to sprinkle two tablespoons of that ice water mixture over the dough, incorporating it with the bench scraper, so the bench scraper sort of goes in and out. And was that a tool that you saw your grandmother use or is that just... Because I feel like that's unusual, the idea of the straight bottom of the bench scraper in a round bowl.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, that's why you need a pretty good-
Jessie Sheehan:
A flat bottom.
Melissa Elsen:
... flat bottom. It's got to be pretty wide on the bottom. Because this instruction would've been like the way we were doing it in the bakery and we had big bowls. We would making, we don't do it this way anymore, but when we started everything for a long time, it was all made by hand, all the dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's incredible.
Melissa Elsen:
Of course, that's not really scalable. We tried, we stuck with it as long as we could, but then we had to switch to machines. So we were using gigantic metal bowls-
Jessie Sheehan:
Which had the flat bottom, the bench scrapper worked,
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. Exactly, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're sprinkling the two tablespoons of ice water over the dough, incorporating with the bench scraper, or we can use a spatula and should I picture a flexible-
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
One of the ones where the white top and the long red handle?
Melissa Elsen:
Exactly. Yeah, like a rectangular head on it. Yeah, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we will incorporate, and we'll mix together until incorporated. Would you ever put your hands in there or do you not want-
Melissa Elsen:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
You would?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I do. I like to put my hands in it because I really like to use my hands when I'm doing this because that's the fun part of making, you know what I mean, the tactile part of making dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
Totally. I think it's also, it's scary for people because sometimes your hands are too warm and you have to be really gentle with the dough, but I always say, it's a cliché, but it's true, that your hands are like your best tool in the kitchen.
Melissa Elsen:
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And if you just use your fingertips and try not to get your palms in there, you're probably going to be a little safer if you feel like you have warm hands.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So we're going to continue to add the water one or two tablespoons at a time until the mixture comes together in a ball with maybe just a few dry bits remaining, and then we're going to squeeze and pinch with our fingertips until the dough is totally brought together. Drizzling, I love this note, Erin McDowell talks about this too, drizzling small drops of ice water on those little dry bits, and then just kind of making those cohesive and then adding them to the rest of the stuff that's already wet enough.
Melissa Elsen:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because the problem is when people drizzle it over the stuff that's already perfectly hydrated.
Melissa Elsen:
Wet, exactly, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Perfect.
Melissa Elsen:
Another thing that I really like to do is when you have part of this already hydrated ball and then the dry bits, I take the bench scraper and I cut up the bigger piece, and then you expose the wet stuff to the dry stuff-
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, and then you can incorporate it without adding more water?
Melissa Elsen:
Exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, brilliant. I love that.
Melissa Elsen:
And I really like to, once it's starting to come together, I like to chop it up again and then push it together.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love that.
Melissa Elsen:
Because then you again re-expose that wet area to that dry area.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's a really good tip.
Melissa Elsen:
And then you don't have to... Adding the water is the hardest part of this, I think. Well, and then knowing when to stop blending in the butter, but then adding the water and knowing how much to use
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, using too much water can be ones downfall. Now we're going to run our fingers through the pie dough. We're not going to overwork it. We never knead it like bread. We don't want any large chunks of butter. We should see streaks. We're going to form it into a disc and chill for at least an hour. After it's chilled, we're going to flour our work surface, grab our rolling pin. I've read your favorite, or at least in the cookbook, your favorite is a solid French tapered?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I mean definitely... I have all of them. Yeah, I mean, you can use a French tapered to do the whole thing. The tapered part will stretch it a little bit more, so you got to be a little careful that you don't overstretch the middle if you're using a taper, sometimes, then I just use the flat edge to kind of then just finish rolling it out. In the bakery they use, we still roll the dough, all the circles by hand, and they use a big circumference pin with the handles on it, but it's got to have good bearings in it. The rod that runs through the center can't be bendy, so sometimes if I see a vintage rolling pin somewhere, I will push it against my leg to see if the rod bends and I'm like, "Okay, that one's a good one."
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, that's so interesting, another good tip. Yeah, I think it's great. In the book you sort of give, this is so granular and nerdy and I think perfect for my beloved She's My Cherry Pie listeners, you guys actually give instructions on, this is how you use a French pin. This is how you use one with the ball bearings and the handles, and I loved the specificity. Because people will often say, you can use whatever pin you want, but you guys have, we're going to go through it now, but you guys have really specific instructions about how each pin works, which I love.
We're going to remove the dough, chilled dough, let it sit for about 5 to 10 minutes before rolling because if we roll too early, it'll crack. Then we're going to start rolling with our pin with the tapered ends slightly below the center of the circle and roll away from us doing one full stroke and adding slightly more pressure on the left side of the dough or pin than the right. So we're kind of doing our flattening in the upper left quadrant of the dough. I know this sounds like math or something, but don't get scared. And then we'll decrease the pressure as we get to the edges. And then after that one stroke, we'll now move the dough and eighth or a quarter inch counterclockwise, sprinkle a little more flour and do that again. I thought that was fascinating. And then as the circle gets bigger, you want to make sure you're not overstretching the dough, and this is sort of what you just said, the tapered pin puts more pressure in the middle of the dough, so when you reach eight to nine inches, you switch to your flat pin.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, that's the way that we always like to do it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Melissa Elsen:
If you get that flat pin, then you know that you're not going to have those, because sometimes you get that thin area that's a little bit limp and wimpy and then it's too thick at the edges, so then you can kind of really help control the-
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm the queen of thin and limpy or limpy and thin. I feel like that's always happening to me, and it never occurred to me... I don't even think I have a pin with handles. I want to have one because I was just like, "Oh, French tapered," and now I'm thinking-
Melissa Elsen:
Or there's the dowel ones, I know you have one of those.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, the dowel, I do have that. I do have that.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, so you can use that and it doesn't have to have the handles. I know, I feel like the handle one is sort of out of fashion or something-
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, right? But it's so like-
Melissa Elsen:
But it's sold as a sort of less, like you said, less-
Jessie Sheehan:
Sexy or something. People are like, "I need my tapered pin." Yeah, I just think that's... So many great tips from a pie wizard. So now again, there are instructions for just using the flat pin. If you're using a flat pin, you don't have to do all that, just pressure on the left, etc. You're doing one stroke moving, doing one stroke and moving.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, and you just don't want to roll off the edge. You want to-
Jessie Sheehan:
The edges would be too thin.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, yeah, because it will slide off.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do you stop right before the edge? Do you go over the edge, but just really gently?
Melissa Elsen:
I mean, probably kind of go over the edge, but really lightly. I was like, I have to think now, you know.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course, because your body just does it naturally.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's learned behavior. So if any cracks appear, we'll use a small piece of dough from the edge to fix that, or we'll use water on our fingertips. We're going to roll till it's about two to three inches bigger than our pie plate. And I loved this make-ahead tip. I've actually never... I've made a head obviously discs of dough, but you're recommending that you can also roll it out on parchment and then roll it up within the parchment into a tube and then freeze it and then let it thaw. 15 minutes till.... I thought that was really smart. When you're letting it thaw, once it's pliable, you just kind of very gently unfurl it as it were?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, you just don't want to try to unfurl it too early.
Jessie Sheehan:
Too early because it will crack. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now we're going to make the crumb topping, mine and Melissa's favorite, and we're going to stir together that King Arthur Flour, some light or dark brown sugar. Do you have a preference, light or dark?
Melissa Elsen:
I guess if I had to pick, probably dark, just because there's more flavor, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And some granulated sugars and some kosher salt in a large bowl. So first of all, is this a whisk situation?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, yeah. A whisk, just kind get sure it's all incorporated together.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then want both, why is it nice to have both the brown sugar and the granulated?
Melissa Elsen:
I think that the brown sugar has more flavor and it's a little stickier, but then the granulated is good for dispersion and that sort of-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, crispiness. And we're doing this in a large bowl, kind of a similar bowl to what we made the pie dough in.
Melissa Elsen:
Mm-hmm.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to add some unsalted butter, again, the highest fat you can find cut into half-inch cubes and we cut the butter with our bench scraper. The butter is at room temperature and we're going to toss it to coat in that dry mixture. Once it's tossed a coat, we'll rub the butter into the dry ingredients with our fingertips until the butter is incorporated and the mixture is chunky but not homogeneous, and we'll chill for at least 15 minutes. So I have a question, why soften butter rather than cold butter, and do you think it makes a difference?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, so it is different than a lot of the way you would normally see this made, it would be more like cutting the cold butter into the flour. I do think it makes a difference. I think you can get less homogeneous that way, or something.
Jessie Sheehan:
With the cold butter?
Melissa Elsen:
Then you would with the cold butter. Yeah, I think that the-
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, the softened butter-
Melissa Elsen:
The softened butter you can kind of... Because with streusel or crumb, you really want it to be some chunky bits and then some sandy areas, and you want it to be all kind of different texturing. Right, and I guess I think it's just easier too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, it's definitely easier. I feel like when I'm trying to break almost frozen or really cold butter into flour, I'm like, "Hello fingers, that can't work anymore."
Melissa Elsen:
And that actually brings up, because some pie dough recipes will tell you to use frozen butter, but I never liked that because I always felt like that you ended up melting the outside of the butter in the process of the pieces, but then the inside would still be frozen, so I never thought that that worked, just cold butter worked well. So I think it's kind of that same concept, you're going to kind of, if it's cold, you really got to continue to work it. If it's already room temperature, you can just be really quick about it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, makes sense. Okay, so now we're going to fit the dough into the pan and we'll do some crimping. So metal pie tins or glass? I think I read both.
Melissa Elsen:
Either one, quite frankly, whatever you have is usually the answer. But, I mean, I like glass because you can see the bottom and then you definitely know, because that's always a difficult thing with pie, especially for people who haven't done it as many times, is to know when the bottom's going to be done. Granted glass is more insulating, so it also takes a little longer. I mean, in the bakery everything's baked in tin foil pans, disposable. At home, I would use either one, just a little different temperature if you're using glass or if you're using metal.
Jessie Sheehan:
Just out of curiosity, is there a great brand of an aluminum tin? Because I always find them so flimsy and I'm sure you guys have sourced-
Melissa Elsen:
Well, I think they're like Pactiv or something, it's like food service.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Melissa Elsen:
But yes, there is a major difference. There are some times we've been like, "Oh, we could get these, there a little bit more affordable." Then yes, they bend when you try to pick them up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, not good.
Melissa Elsen:
So they have to be sturdy. So we have one that we've used for a long time and they are... Yeah, they can hold up to... Because when we're baking custard pies at the bakery, they finish at different times, so they really pull them one at a time, so they lift it off the pan out of the oven, and so they have to be able to use that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, do that easily. But we're going to generously butter our tin, why? I feel like that's an unusual pie instruction. I feel like a lot of people just put their pie crust straight into the tin or straight into the glass.
Melissa Elsen:
Well, I think it does a couple of things. It helps the dough stick in place. It holds it so that when you're crimping, it doesn't slide around and I think that it just adds extra browning. More butter is always better.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more, butter for the win. So we're going to fold our piece of dough in half, we're going to lay it over our round dough circle in half. We're going to lay it over the pie plate, unfold it, shimmy it into place, no air bubbles, gaps. We don't want to pull or stretch. Then we're going to trim about one and a half inches over the rim of the pie plate, the inner rim. I love this tip, there's so many good tips. We're going to sugar and flour the bottom of the pie crust, a half teaspoon of each, and that's to avoid a soggy bottom.
Melissa Elsen:
That's the idea. That's the idea is that it's just an extra layer of something to absorb extra moisture at the bottom.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love. So smart, both the buttering of the pie plate, I have to start doing both of those things. But anyway, now we're going to create this kind of substantial crust edge crimp, which is like the Four & Twenty signature, I think. I thought this was interesting, if we're making a lattice crust, we are going to roll the edge of the crust in to make a crimp. Double-crusted, roll inward as well. Since this is a crumb topping, are we rolling outwards?
Melissa Elsen:
With a single-crusted pie like that, I would roll it under.
Jessie Sheehan:
You roll it under?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, roll it under and then go all the way around, make it kind of a ridge, if you will, and then go through and give it the crimping.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, and the others, you roll it outwards?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. So with the lattice top, the lattice gets laid on and then we kind of roll it up and over.
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, I got you.
Melissa Elsen:
Kind of roll it into itself and then do the roll.
Jessie Sheehan:
Understood. Understood. So we're going to do this rolling fairly tightly. It wants to unravel due to the gluten, so we're going to tightly fold it all around the edge. We want to roll and pinch the extra dough under, so it kind of makes a wall and sits directly on top of the edge of the pie plate, pinching it tightly so it doesn't unravel. If our fingers are sticky, we'll dip them in flour and then we'll begin the crimp by making a C with our index and thumb of one hand on the outside of the crust wall and then press our thumb or probably any other finger into the C from the inside. Listeners, I know that sounds confusing, but it actually is so easy when you-
Melissa Elsen:
If you do it in front of you, make a C and then see and then-
Jessie Sheehan:
Push your thumb between the C.
Melissa Elsen:
Or whatever finger from your other hand, your non-C hand feels comfortable to you at the bakery. Some people, do their thumbs, some people use their index or middle finger.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I think I use my, I'm just having to visualize it, but I think I use the side of my index finger.
So then we'll just crimp or flute all the way around and just make sure that it's kind of standing up on top of the edge of the pie plate so that when it bakes and moves, et cetera, you're still going to get this big crimp and it doesn't disappear.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, you want the support of the rim to kind of hold that crimp. It's especially important if you're doing a pre-baked shell because it can either slump and slide down into the pan, which is very sad, or it can melt over the side. So you really just want to use the side as the support so that it stays where you want it. With this pie because it's going to get filled with the fruit and it's not going to be pre-baked, it's a little more forgiving, so that's good for anybody who might want to try this.
Jessie Sheehan:
Do we still want to chill it at this point for 30 minutes?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I always chill it. I always want the dough to go into the oven chilled because it'll hold the shape.
Jessie Sheehan:
Would you chill in the refrigerator or freezer?
Melissa Elsen:
Either one. I often use a freezer if I'm at home because I just know it's going to happen faster.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Melissa Elsen:
Because pie takes a while. Pie is a bit of a process to get it from start to finish, so sometimes you're looking for things that can speed that process up a little bit.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course. Your freezer is such a great tool that people don't realize.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, yeah, I do put the dough in the more often than the fridge.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. So now we're going to heat the oven. We'll position oven racks in both the bottom and the center positions. We'll place a rimmed baking sheet on the bottom rack, heat the oven to 425, a little bit lower, 400 if we're using a metal pie plate. And then the reason we've positioned the oven racks in this way is because we're going to start the baking on a bottom rack and then we're going to be moving it to the middle, and that just helps the bottom brown.
Melissa Elsen:
It helps the bottom brown nicely, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we make our apple filling. So we're going to juice two lemons into a large mixing bowl. We're going to remove any seeds from the apples, core them, peel them, thinly slice them. We're going to use baking apples, a combo of sweet and tart?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, yeah, so we always like to use at least two, if not three varieties of apples in the pie. Obviously we live in New York, so we have amazing New York apples, but you want an apple that's going to hold its shape a little bit and have a little bit of acid tart flavor. We also like to include an apple that's going to break down a little bit more and give it a little bit more, you don't want it saucy, but saucy-ish, I guess. I feel like that kind of fills in the gaps so you don't have as much space in between. That kind of also helps lock up the moisture a little bit too, so it kind of holds everything in suspension.
Jessie Sheehan:
Mm-hmm. Are there particular types of apples that you would use in this pie from a New York orchard per se?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, so some good ones are the Cortland apples, McIntoshes, that's kind of one of the apples that does break down a little bit more like I was talking about, but they're like really apple-y, it's a classic apple cider-y, apple flavor. We like to use those. Honeycrisp are really good. I like the apples that have an aromatic floral flavor profile to them, and we use a lot of Idareds, but also at the grocery store if you're not in the Northeast, if I was going to go for something that I know is always available, Golden Delicious always work well as well.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, great. So we're going two dredge our apple slices in lemon juice and we're going to sprinkle them with granulated sugar over the top and toss a coat. I thought this was such an interesting instruction, we're going to set them aside to soften slightly and release some of their juices for 20 to 30 minutes. I never do that with apple pie. Tell me about that. Why is that a good idea?
Melissa Elsen:
Well, so it does a couple of things, it releases a little bit of excess juice and it also makes the apples more pliable and kind of takes some of their crispness away so that when you are filling the shell with the apples, they kind of fit together better.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, that's so smart.
Melissa Elsen:
Because often when you're making an apple pie, it mounds up really nice and you put a nice pie top on it and then you bake it and then there's that big space.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, but because the apples kind of shrink when they bake.
Melissa Elsen:
They shrink. So you're kind of pre-shrinking them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that, Melissa. So smart.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, it works really well.
Jessie Sheehan:
I was just making a, I have a recipe called Better Than Apple Pie Bar, and I was just making that with apples that were so crispy and chunky and there were so many gaps and I was trying to fill the... And I love that. I love that.
Melissa Elsen:
That will help with that.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that. So in a small bowl we're going to sprinkle some Angostura bitters with some light or dark brown sugar, some cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, black pepper, kosher salt, and all-purpose flour and we're going to mix this together. Tell me about why we're adding bitters.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, so that's something we did early on. We know again, we were looking for unique things to do with... That's part of one of the Four & Twenty signatures, is slightly unique flavor profiles. And if you smell bitters, these are just cocktail bitters, but if you smell them, they're spicy, they're warm. It really complements it and yeah, just an extra layer of something different.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love that. And then is there a brand of cinnamon and allspice and nutmeg that you guys love?
Melissa Elsen:
I think at home I often have Frontier Co-Op or Simply Organic. The Burlap & Barrel spices are really, really nice, but I tend to have, I think mostly Frontier.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I love the addition of Black Pepper, is that another little kind of Four & Twenty zhuzhing up like a typical-
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. And probably again, something that you maybe saw in some of these older cookbooks as well. It's a spice and it has a spicy peppery profile, so it adds a little bit of a savory element too, which again, it's all about balance.
Jessie Sheehan:
So now we're going to add the filling and top it with the crumb topping, so we're going to drain... I thought this was interesting. So we're going to drain any liquid that has been released from the apple slices, which I thought was interesting because I feel like that has so much flavor. Are you sacrificing flavor when you do that or not really?
Melissa Elsen:
I don't really think so. It's not a lot. I mean, there's a method where you can take that and you can reduce it and-
Jessie Sheehan:
Cook it on the stove top.
Melissa Elsen:
Which if you want to do that, by all means, that's like... Again, but as I was mentioning before, apple pie making is a bit of a long process. It's not hard, but it's time-consuming. So if you want to add another step to it, I fully endorse it, but for simplicity. And again, especially if you're using in-season apples this time of year, they're so flavorful. Yeah, I think you'll be fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Makes sense. So we're going to drain any liquid, then we're going to add that sugar spice mixture that we just made to the apples, gently tossing to distribute. Then we're going to tightly layer the apples in the crust. And I love this, it's a slightly drier filling than blueberries. So with blueberries, you wouldn't mound them up, but with the apples, you end up mounding them up.
Melissa Elsen:
Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
And I love this, again, because we've macerated them, they have flexibility and they're easy to pack, which I love. In the prepared pie crust, we want minimal gaps. We'll mound it slightly higher in the center, and then we'll evenly distribute that chilled crumb topping over the top. Do you press to adhere or do you not need to?
Melissa Elsen:
No, I don't. Yeah, I mean maybe very lightly we'll tap.
Jessie Sheehan:
Now, we're going to bake. We're going to place the pie on that preheated baking sheet on the lowest rack of the oven. We'll bake for about 20 to 25 minutes until the pastry is set and beginning to brown. Then we'll lower the temp to 375 and move the pie to the center, continue to bake until the crust is a deep golden brown and the juices are bubbling 35 to 45 minutes later. I feel like apple doesn't always bubble, but does this one bubble?
Melissa Elsen:
I mean, it'll bubble at the edges for sure.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, at the edge?
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah. Yeah, it should, anyway.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then when you're in the bakery, there are, I assume convection ovens?
Melissa Elsen:
Mm-hmm, yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
So are you still doing the bottom and the... I feel like a convection oven is different because it's just lots of hot air moving around.
Melissa Elsen:
Yes, absolutely. They rotate everything and-
Jessie Sheehan:
But they're not moving it from rack to rack, they're probably baking 12 at a time.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, 12 or 16. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, they're spinning them around. I think we used to do the top-to-bottom thing, but I think that maybe we finally decided that that was-
Jessie Sheehan:
It was too fussy.
Melissa Elsen:
We could get away with not doing it. But we definitely have to rotate them especially in those convection ovens, there's a lot of cooler and hot spots though.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I have to rotate. I'm always interested when I speak to guests about rotating. Because I was trained in a bakery, I just can't imagine that you would never rotate because you have no idea what your oven is doing. And it can change day to day. But some people are like, "Oh no, too fussy, I never rotate." I'm like-
Melissa Elsen:
Oh no, I'm a-
Jessie Sheehan:
"You're a radical."
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, I'm babysitting stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. Me too.
Melissa Elsen:
I'm always like, "What's going on in there?"
Jessie Sheehan:
So then we're going to let the pie cool for at least an hour, but two to three is better.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely, I would say two minimum.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, people don't understand that about pie you have to... With my raspberry pie, I will wait four hours because I like it when you can slice it clean.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, exactly. After a couple hours, it might still be a little juicy, which it's going to be delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, exactly. It depends sort of-
Melissa Elsen:
... Residual warmth and all that, but if you want it to really be set up, you got to wait.
Jessie Sheehan:
So we'll let cool for about two to three hours on a wire rack, we'll use a serrated knife for slicing. I thought that was such a good note. And we actually slide the blade through three times to get the perfect slice. I loved that. Such a good tip.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, you got to really make sure that it's cleanly through all of the crust.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, and I also love the serrated... I'm not grabbing my serrated knife enough.
Melissa Elsen:
Oh yeah, everything. It's all in the, like over at the shop when they slice the pies, that's what we have is a pointed tip, serrated, yeah, kind of like a steak knife.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, totally. And then we're going to use a triangle-shaped pie server, so smart. Is there a brand or is that a restaurant supply thing?
Melissa Elsen:
The ones we use are restaurant supply, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then we'll serve it slightly warm or at room temp.
Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today, Melissa. And I just want to say that you are my cherry pie and my apple pie.
Melissa Elsen:
Oh, thank you so much.
Jessie Sheehan:
This was so fun.
Melissa Elsen:
Yeah, thank you.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Yes! Apples for supporting our miniseries. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.