PIES.

Pies may be made with any sort of paste. It is a fault to roll it out
too thin; for if it has not sufficient substance, it will, when baked,
be dry and tasteless. For a pie, divide the paste into two sheets;
spread one of them over the bottom and sides of a deep dish well
buttered. Next put in the fruit or other ingredients, (heaping it
higher in the centre,) and then place the other sheet of paste on the
top as a lid or cover; pressing the edges closely down, and afterwards
crimping or notching them with a sharp small knife.

In making pies of juicy fruit, it is well to put on the centre of the
under crust a common tea-cup, laying the fruit round it and over it.
The juice will collect under the cup, and not be liable to run out from
between the edges. There should be plenty of sugar strewed among the
fruit as you put it into the pie.

Preserves should never be put into covered pies. The proper way is to
lay them in baked shells.

All pies are best the day they are baked. If kept twenty-four hours the
paste falls and becomes comparatively hard, heavy, and unwholesome. If
the fruit is not ripe, it should be stewed with sugar, and then allowed
to get cold before it is put into the pie. If put in warm it will make
the paste heavy. With fruit pies always have a sugar dish on the table,
in case they should not be found sweet enough.
