Full of Light and Life

The Raspberry Chiffon Pie I made during Week 22 was made for our Easter celebration at my in-laws.  Living in Southern California, the odds that Easter would fall on a warm and sunny day were quite favorable.  I wanted a pie that would not be heavy, as well as a pie that would be full of life and brightness to remind us of the celebration of Christ's resurrection. Upon reading through this recipe from the Summer Entertaining magazine by Cook's Illustrated (Summer 2009), this pie would fit the bill.

The crust for this pie, a pat-in-the-pan crust, is a new one for me.  Along with some of the usual ingredients for crust--flour, sugar and butter--this recipe also called for cream cheese to help stabilize it and keep the juicy raspberries from making a soggy mess of the bottom of the pie.  After mixing up the ingredients for the crust, which looked like loose crumbs, I put the crumbly crust in the pie pan, and pressed them around the base and up the sides of the pan.  Although I placed the crust in the refrigerator, following the directions, I did not leave it in for the full hour as directed because we had to leave for my in-laws.  I did not think taking it out 15 minutes early would make a big difference, but I was wrong!  While baking, the sides of the crust slipped down into the base.  When I pulled it out of the oven, I tried to manipulate the sides of the crust while it was still hot to form into a more attractive crust.  This sort of worked, but next time I will just make sure the crust refrigerates for at least an hour before baking to see if the problem can be solved that way.  Otherwise, I believe there could have been better instruction on this crust, perhaps involving pie weights?

Pat-in-the-Pan crust before baking

Pat-in-the-Pan crust after baking... hmmm... need to try again...

The fruit and chiffon layers were very easy to put together.  Part of the recipe calls for fresh raspberries, but all the stores in our area did not have them in their produce sections (I checked 4 stores!).

Fruit layer added to the crust

Chiffon topping the fruit layer

Whipped topping finishing off the Raspberry Chiffon Pie

Easter pie--light, bright, and full of life

The completed Raspberry Chiffon Pie, apart from its misshapen crust, was exactly what I hoped my Easter pie would be: light, bright, and full of life.  I definitely will be making this one again.