Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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E A S Y A S P I E Piping Plover Baking Co. gives advice on making gluten-free and vegan pies this Thanksgiving. Owner and baker Erin Silvia knows gluten free and vegan baking. In fact, she's built her entire business around it. Pies are one of her favorite things to create and while baking gluten free and vegan might seem challenging, it's not. Here are some of her tips and tricks: P I E M A K I N G Never use room- temperature or warm water. Instead, use ice water. Roll pie dough between two pieces of parchment paper dusted with your gluten free flour of choice. Add an acid to your ice water (Silvia recommends apple cider vinegar). This helps keep the dough tender. Use one teaspoon per 1/3 cup of water. Room temperature (not soft) coconut oil is a great substitute for shortening. If you choose to use coconut oil, you can skip the traditional chilling of pie dough before rolling. A chilled dough made with coconut oil will be too hard to roll. Gluten-free flours need a few minutes to fully hydrate. Allow your dough to rest for 5 minutes and evaluate if more water is needed before you roll it out. Because butter is not used in vegan baking, salt is an important flavor component —don't skip it. pipingploverbaking.com 112 rushed if you want to get it right. Clermont advises bakers to "take their time rolling out dough and cutting it. Very cold dough is what you want to be working with," so don't skip the chilling, which takes, you guessed it, a little time. "We really like making pies. Yes, the process has steps but the final products are so beautiful that's it all very much worth it to us," she says. Amateur bakers often fret over getting piecrust just right and to this Clermont advises people to relax, have fun and just practice. Regardless of the final product, making a pie from scratch should be a joy for both the baker and the people enjoying it. During this busy baking season, the bakery will be hard at work taking both online and phone orders for holiday pies up until the week before anksgiving. Clermont is committed to an organized pie pickup process to ensure all customers feel safe and socially distanced throughout. In addition to their pies and pastries, Sandpiper also makes a host of other delights, including out of this world breakfast sandwiches, quiches, and other items. sandpiperbakery.com Clermont uses local ingredients whenever possible.