Friday, December 31, 2010

Easy as Pie Part 1: Crust

The first in my Baked Installment: Pie Crust...easy to make and equally easy to ruin. Here are the tips my mom shared with me when I picked up my first rolling pin (with a few of my own additions over the years):

  1. Keep all your ingredients cold. I cannot emphasize this enough. So, again. Keep all your ingredients COLD!!! This helps to keep the butter/shortening/lard from melting in your dough, and those globs of fat you'll see in the rolled out dough will make your crust nice and flaky.
  2. Use a healthy* portion of fat. Most recipes for crust call for only 3 TBSPNs of butter, but this just isn't enough. Why would we want to skimp here anyway? It's not as if we're thinking about our waistlines when making pie! So, make it good...and make it buttery. I use 1/3:1 ratio for my butter and flour. If your recipe calls for one cup of flour, then use 1/3 cup of butter. Then, use an additional 2 TBSPNs of lard or shortening.
  3. Add the cold water a little at a time. Check the dough after each tablespoon to see if it's too dry, and keep going till you have a firm dough. You'll see some loose flour in your bowl, and that's alright. You just don't want a gooey mess.
  4. Work the dough as little as possible. Why? As you massage the dough, this creates gluten strings which are great for maintaining th structure but not for a flaky texture. So, we don't want these. Work the dough just enough to combine everything. Then, you'll form a ball and roll the dough out to fit your pan.
  5. When rolling out the dough, first press the rolling pin into the dough about 3-4 times to help flatten it. Then, roll up and down. Turn the dough, roll up and down. Repeat till your dough is about 1/4" thick.
  6. Set in the pan. Trim the edges, and chill for 15 minutes.
Inspired by a friend who recently asked me to show her how to make crust, and written for prosperity sake. Maybe others will find this helpful, too.

*healthy in the sense of ample, not the calorie-counting sort.