About a month ago, I signed up for the Great American Pies class at The New School.  I had been flirting with the idea of taking classes for awhile, and finally got so frustrated with failed pastry attempts that I decided it was time for professional intervention.  Three words:  so worth it! 

After four hours of pie-making bliss, I walked away with an aching stomach and a brain full of ideas.  I’ve made pies before, but now I feel prepared and competant, having spent time with an accomplished instructor, Bruce Beck.  Here are the best tips I’ve taken away:

1. Chill the dough!  You hear this all the time, and it’s tempting to take shortcuts, but don’t–it makes all the difference.  Chill it for 1 hour as soon as it’s made, wrapped in parchment or plastic:  this prevents sticking, stretching, and ripping.  Chill again, for at least 30 minutes, after rolling out and placing in pie dish to preserve its shape.
2. Pre-cook fruit filling.  To avoid an overly-liquidy, runny filling, combine ingredients as directed, then cook over medium-low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the mixture becomes warm and juicy.  Strain mixture over a large bowl until it has cooled and most of juices have collected in bowl.  Place into chilled pie shell and bake as directed.
3. Substitute tapioca powder and/or cornstarch for flour as a thickener in a fruit filling.  This will make the juices run clear instead of muddy, and preserve the integrity of brightly-colored fruit, like plums or nectarines.  In contrast, a flour-enhanced filling is more appropriate for a heartier pie, such as apple.
4. Egg washes over crusts produce a shiny, European-style effect.  Use milk for a more rustic, American appearance.
5. Pyrex and glass plates are best for yielding a crisp, browned crust.
6. To avoid a soggy crust, cut the fat into the dry ingredients finely.  This is best done with a food processor:  add fat in cubes, then pulse repeatedly until mixture resembles sand.
7. Bake pie on bottom rack of oven.  This is another tip to ensure a crisp, non-soggy crust.
8. Weigh flour instead of measuring by volume.  Flour can settle into a container or become aerated when poured into a new one, so volume measurements, in this case, are unreliable.  Place a bowl on a kitchen scale, zero out the weight of the bowl, and add flour to reach desired weight. 
9. Do not stretch crust dough to fit dish; it will shrink.
10. Allow a freshly-baked pie to cool for a minimum of 5 hours; otherwise, its filling will collapse when you cut into it.  Do not put in fridge to cool!  It should be kept at room temperature. 

A small change to the below recipe that makes a big difference: use blanched, skinless almond slivers for grinding. Before, I used a pre-ground, bagged almond meal that contained the dark specks of skin; this time, I ground my own meal, using blanched slivered almonds that had been skinned. The luminous, waxy ivory makes for a much prettier cookie, and the lack of skin imparts a decidedly lighter, crisper one. It seems that when using an almond meal that incorporates the skins, the result is chewy and heftier. The new macaroons come much closer to that Parisian ideal (although there really is no substitute for the real thing, of course).