Pastry Scrap Pie

After cutting out the circles for the egg tarts, I had all the in-between spaces left over.  I kneaded them, which did remove the lamination, and re-rolled them into small crusts for my patty pans.  I ended up with three crusts.  One got filled that day with the overflow egg filling, and the other two went into the freezer for another time.

Patty pans (single-serve pie tins) used to be toys for little girls.  Their moms would give them the scraps of pie dough after the main crust was shaped, then they could fill it with any leftover filling.  It was part playing house, part learning a life skill, especially in a century which saw a pie on the American table at least twice a day.  It was also a way to avoid waste in a time when you couldn't go to the market any time you needed one thing.

In the time it took me to preheat the oven, I made the filling and readied the two patty pans.  It still took 40 minutes to bake them, but that's just going to happen with a fruit pie.

You can make this with any pie filling.  I had bought the pear specifically for this purpose, so here's my recipe.  To make a full pie, quadruple the recipe, maybe add a fifth pear if they're small.

1 pear
*1 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp flour
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp butter, divided
2 individual (patty pan) crusts

1.  Start preheating oven to 375º and have pie crusts ready.  Slice pears in half longways and scoop out seed core.  Remove inner string.  Cut halves again, then slice thinly.  Place in a bowl and toss with lemon juice to reduce discoloration.

2.  Toss in cardamom, flour, and cloves.  Fill crusts with the fruit and flour "sludge".  Top each pie with 1/2 tsp of butter.  This will cook into the flour and thicken the syrup.

3.  Bake 35-40 minutes, until pears are cooked and pastry is golden.  Allow to cool before serving.

Makes 2 individual pie servings

Difficulty rating  π