vynehorn | The Tale of the Wheat Pie, Chapter 2

Even if you follow the directions, things don't always work the way you planned.

The pie is done. A few people were brave enough to try it. The flavor was good, but texture-wise, it was troubling. I decided not to inflict it on my co-workers, and discarded the rest. I did take a picture of it after it was baked, but I don't have a picture of it after we cut into it. Sorry! I'll post the picture of the baked pie once I download it from the camera.

So I soaked the wheat berries for 24 hours. And I faithfully followed the recipe and cooked them over medium heat for five hours. But while they got pretty soft by the end of 5 hours, the kernels were still fairly intact. Many had split open, but they hadn't become a porridge by any definition of the word.

This worried me, as the slice of wheat pie that I purchased from the bakery and ate did not contain any visible wheat kernels. As far as I could tell, the only texture came from the bits of citron.

At any rate, I decided to proceed with the pie despite my concerns with the wheat. I had made the dough and drained the ricotta on Friday night, so on Saturday all I had to was roll out the dough, make the filling and bake the pie.

The recipe called for using a 12' deep pie pan or springform pan. Unfortunately, all I had was a 10.5' springform pan, and even though the sides were higher than I wanted, that's what I went with. Looking back, I think that this was one of the biggest problems. Because the pie was so deep (2 inches or so) I wasn't able to bake it long enough to achieve the same consistency as the bakery pie. If I try this pie again next year, I'll make sure to use a deep dish pie pan instead.

I had a few problems with getting the crust in. Once it softened up, it tended to break apart fairly easily - it had an entire pound of butter in it, which may have contributed to the problem. I was also concerned about the consistency of the filling. The recipe had warned that if the filling was too soupy, the wheat kernels would sink to the bottom. I ended up adding about 1 extra cup of ricotta into the filling. I also left out at least 1 cup worth of the wheat kernels, as I already knew I had far too much filling for even the springform. I probably filled the pan too much - I left about 1 inch of space from the top of the pan, but the darn thing still rose almost immediately to the top (within 10 minutes of being in the oven). It didn't spill over much though, for which I was thankful.

I took the pie out after 100 minutes (10 minutes longer than the recipe called for) and let it cool. The center sunk somewhat, which I expected, but after it had cooled enough to firm up, I realized that the center was still liquidy, despite the crust being so brown that it would have burned if I left it in longer. After a quick consultation with mom, I covered it with foil and put it back in the oven for another 50 minutes.

Despite the extra cooking time, when I opened the pie today, the consistency was nowhere near as firm as the piece I had tasted. That piece had the consistency of a firm custard or a heavy cheesecake. This one was much looser, and I guess it's because it wasn't baked as long as it needed to be. Also, the wheat kernels were clearly evident (visually and taste-wise). Either the bakery is 1) cooking the damn wheat for a lot longer, 2) using a different type of wheat berry (is this possible??), or 3) maybe they're processing the cooked wheat somehow so that's its smoother??

At any rate, it had a nice flavor, but I think the appearance of the wheat berries scared a lot of people off. Plus it was competing against my aunt's lemon meringue and an ice cream cake. If I try it again next year, I'll make a bunch of changes. Or maybe I'll just order a pie from the bakery....