Bakers vent pies to prevent fillings from boiling over, leaking out, or breaking their perfect crust (the horror).
The most common way to vent a pie is to cut a few slits into the crust top—easy as pie!
However, the most charming way to vent a pie is through the use of a pie bird.
Where a cut in the crust may be sufficient, many bakers find the use of a pie bird—a small hollow ceramic with an arched base and a small hole in the top—results in a less soggy pie bottom, and less sag in the middle.
Placed in the centre of the pie before adding the filling, pie birds provide a direct escape route for excess moisture from the base of the pie. This accounts for a crisper pie bottom; meanwhile the pie bird’s shoulders support the crust, keeping it from sagging. Overall, your oven remains free of spills (until it’s the next meal time, anyway).
Use of these chimney-like vents began sometime in the 19th century. By the 1930s the most popular shape was a blackbird in reference to the nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence: “Four and 20 blackbirds, baked in a pie.”
Antique pie birds can cost quite a lot of dough, but thankfully modern ones are available and sell for a song.
Brenda Grus, a Pennsylvanian ceramicist, creates unique pie birds for chefs and home bakers alike.
“In the 90’s I visited a building in Virginia that had working artist’s studios. There was a clay studio and I was able to watch a potter making pie birds and I bought one. I researched the history and appreciated the use of them and the variations through the years.”
While selling her pieces at pottery exhibitions, Grus found that she needed to have some small, lower cost items. “I remembered the pie bird and thought it would be a nice small item. Sales have continued to increase over the past eight years of offering them.”
Grus’ flock of flutes includes traditional bird designs, as well as owls, penguins and flamingos. But, that’s just one piece of the pie: other animals such as pie hedgehogs, pie daschunds, and even pie sharks are customer favourites.
“I think that life is too short not to have fun and if this makes someone smile, it is worth it,” says Grus.
No matter how you slice it, these pie vents are a playful centrepiece as well as a useful tool for any baker!
