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Kitchen Essentials

Loquats ripen across the southern part of the US from California all the way to Florida in May and June. They have an extremely short shelf life, so if you have a bunch of loquats on your hands and aren’t sure what to do with them, this pie (which eats ALMOST like an apricot pie) is a great way to get through them.

This recipe yields an 8” pie baked in a tart pan, which means it’s not a deep dish style pie. If you want to load your pie up, you’ll need to scale up the amount of filling you use by up to 2x.

Loquat Pie

Process the loquats: prepare by filling a medium sized bowl with cool tap water and squeeze a lemon into the bowl. This will be your holding spot for the loquats as you prepare them since they are quick to oxidize.

Wash your loquats (we’re keeping the skin on in this recipe). Using a paring knife, cut off both ends of the loquat (the stem side, and the blossom side). Cut 1 straight line from end to end, all the way to the pit. Firmly but carefully push the seeds out through this hole. On the blossom side, you should see a little circle where you’ve hit the inner seed membrane. Firmly grasp this circle with your pointer finger and thumb and pull — it should peel from the fruit fairly cleanly. As you finish each loquat, toss it into your lemon water and work through the remainder of the fruits.

To make the filling, drain the lemon water from the fruits and toss with additional lemon juice (1-2 additional lemons, depending on your taste preference), sugar, and salt. Cover and set aside at room temperature for about an hour.

After an hour, collect the juice from the loquats in a small pot. Add the tapioca starch and heat over medium-low heat, whisking constantly until the mixture just starts to thicken. You don’t want the liquid to coagulate too much, so quickly pour this mixture over the top of the fruits, and toss to combine. Set aside until you’re ready to assemble your pie.

Place flour, buttermilk powder, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor along with approximately 1/3 of the butter (this doesn’t need to be exact). Process, pulsing until the butter just “disappears” to the eye, but not longer to prevent melting the butter.

Move the flour to a bowl. Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, slice the remaining butter into thin pats about the thickness of 1-2 credit cards. Again, this doesn’t need to be exact or perfect. Toss the flour mixture over the pats of butter to coat each, separating the pats if they’re stuck together.

Add the water and begin tossing the mixture together with your hands or a bowl scraper. Once the mixture starts to come together into a scraggly mixture,  dump it out and knead it a few times until it just barely comes together.

To make the dough flaky, roll it out to a rectangle about 1/2” thick (again this is just a reference but it doesn’t need to be perfect). Roll the rectangle up like a tight jelly roll and then flatten slightly. Divide the doughーI like to split it into 2/3 and 1/3 so I have a little bit of extra dough for the top crust lattice, but you can adjust to your liking.

Roll the smaller piece of dough to fit the tart pan and carefully press the dough into the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and move to the fridge for at least an hour.

Roll the larger piece of dough and slice into strips to create a lattice. I like to build my lattice on a plate so it’s easy to transfer later on. Cover the lattice with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425F, ideally with a baking stone or baking steel placed on a rack in the lower third of the oven. Let the oven heat for at least an hour if using a baking stone or steel.

Fill the pie shell with the filling, spreading it out evenly. Optionally, brush the edges of the dough with egg white to ensure a seal between the top and bottom of the pie crust. Carefully drape the lattice over the top, gently pushing pieces to get it into the right position. Using your fingers, press around the edges of the tart pan to remove the extra pie dough.

Brush with egg wash and sprinkle generously with coarse sugar. Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 375 and bake until the very center of the pie is bubbling and clear, about 45 minutes. Let the pie cool completely before cutting or the filling will run — this can take a couple of hours but your patience will be rewarded!