BAKING PIES ON THE BBQ

With the weather so hot it is hard to want to turn on the oven to make pies. I have been picking cherries off of the trees and rhubarb from the garden. I had already picked, pitted and froze eight cups of cherries earlier this week. Either I had to freeze these cherries and rhubarb for future baking or think of other options in order to do some baking. I thought of using the barbecue. I had never baked before on the barbecue and did some research by asking some friends and going online. No one I had talked to had baked pies on the barbecue. Some had make pizza. What I read included baking over an element that is not turned on or baking over an inverted pie plate that created a bridge between the actual burner and the pie plate. I also read to use aluminum pie plates and to not use glass or enamelled pie plates like an Emile Henry. Since our barbecue has a second rack above the main rack, I decided to bake the pies on the second rack. It would be off direct heat and in many ways it was like an oven.

I kept the barbecue temperature at about 400 degrees F and the pies took just over an hour to cook. The gas barbecue is large and has five burners. I turned on only three of them. I could have turned on four of them. After about 40 minutes I moved some of the pies around on the second rack as I noticed some were cooking faster than others.

I would definitely do this again and bake not only pies but other food. In making these pies, I decided to not have a full crust on the top as I wanted to watch the fruit and see if it was cooking and also get an idea of how the crust would bake.

Here is the link for a previous posted recipe for cherry pie. This recipe includes the pie crust and filling. I used the pie crust recipe from Tenderflake as it makes three double pie crusts (tenderflake pie crust recipe.). This is a fail safe recipe for me. I use Crisco instead of Tenderflake and I mix the dough in a mixmaster.

Provided below is my standard rhubarb pie filling. You can add strawberries or cherries to the chopped rhubarb. I had some extra cherries that couldn't make it into the pie and I added them to the rhubarb filling.

Rhubarb Pie Filling

4 cups rhubarb, chopped
2/3 cups sugar or Splenda
3 tbsp flour or minute tapioca
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cherry filling added to the pie crust.

Not a pretty way to layer the dough on top.

Rhubarb filling added to the pie crust.

My version of a galette, not very pretty.

Baking on the top rack of the barbecue. The lid was closed while they baked.

Cherry pie cooling on top of the stove.