Shiny Cooking

Now there’s a mouthful. Know why? Because it’s so versatile. It works for the gluten-free folks. It works for the pie folks. It works for the tart folks. It works for the don’t-make-me-get-out-the-rolling-pin folks.

Even better, this walnut-oat pie crust recipe is just a prelude to the fresh blueberry pie I made it with, coming up soon. Thought I’d get you going with this amazing crust first, because it will work with more than just blueberry pies. It’ll work with cheesecake, other pies, all sorts of tarts.

And it’s press-in-the-pan easy.

the mad day of baking for gun lake

Last week, as usual, I totally miscalculated time to food ratios. I was leaving on Thursday to visit J and B at the lake and for some reason I dicked around doing comp stuff all of Tuesday, totally forgetting this meant I’d overcompensate on Wednesday in a mad rush.

Wednesday I wound up making a double batch of no longer gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, a variation I use when doubling that replaces some of the oat flour with white whole wheat. Makes for a more traditionally taller cookie.

Then, or rather simultaneously — I wound up washing a lot of dishes that day — I tried out KAF’s zucchini bread. KAF, I love your cookbook, but one of your recipe developers has a serious nutmeg fetish. Many of the recipes have about twice the nutmeg I’d normally add to things, taste-wise, and I like nutmeg. On the bright side, my victims friends thought it was just the right amount.

The zucchini bread came out fine, cooled fine, cut a few slices to photograph, perfect texture. Until it sat a few hours, and became an uber-moist blob. Ick. All I can think is perhaps I should have chopped the zucchini up more finely after grating it, or let it sit and drain a bit before adding to the batter. Maybe my zucchinis are just really watery. It improved upon toasting, at least, and K liked it a lot that way. :p

Also simultaneously, I was madly putting together this crust and the blueberry pie, which I’ll go into in more detail in the next post. I know. Such a tease.

a more awesome crust you will not find

No siree. Not if you like oats and walnuts. And if you don’t like those, you don’t like food, and you aren’t reading this anyway.

It’s a crunchy crust, of decent thickness, about 1/4 inch. Crunchy kind of like those crunchy granola bars, but not to quite that tooth-breaking extent. The crunchiness crumbles right away in your mouth, and the butter and brown sugar enhance the warm toasty flavor of the baked oats and walnuts. This walnut-oat crust is the perfect foil for lightly sweetened fresh fruit pies. I’d like to try it with the currant pie. I bet cream pies like that would work great with the contrast of smoothness and crunch.

Look no further. This is the perfect press-in-pan crust.

gluten-free walnut-oat pie or tart crust

italic:
This recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, aka My Favorite Baking Cookbook Ever. Reprinted with permission.

prep: 20 minutes
total time: 35 minutes
servings: 8
special equiment: food processor, 9- or 10-inch pie plate
oven: 350 degrees

1-1/3 cups old-fashioned or quick-cooking rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup walnuts
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Spread the oats in a round cake pan. Spread the walnuts in another round cake pan. Bake the walnuts until they smell toasty and are beginning to brown, about 8 minutes. Bake the oats until they begin to brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Watch both the oats and the walnuts carefully; they go from brown to burned quite quickly.

After removing the walnuts from the oven, let them cool for a few minutes. Then, while the oats are still toasting, coarsely chop them. There’s no need for fineness as they’re going into the food processor.

When the oats are done, remove them from the oven. Transfer both the toasted oats and chopped toasted walnuts to a food processor. Add the sugar and salt and drizzle in the melted butter.

Process until the oats and walnuts are finely ground and the mixture is cohesive. Happily for us, this stage will be obvious — all the ingredients will be moist and stick together.

Remove the mixture from the food processor and press into the bottom and up the sides of a 9- or 10-inch pie plate (not deep dish) that’s at least 1-1/4 inches deep, or a similar tart pan.

Bake at 350 degrees until it’s just barely beginning to brown, 14 minutes. Remove from the over and set it on a rack to cool. Use with your favorite prebaked-crust pie or tart recipes.

Variation: Use pecans instead of walnuts.

tags: oats, walnuts

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