Pie in the face

Confession: I've always wanted to throw a pie in someone's face… preferably an ex-boss of mine. It's kind of on my bucket list.

Speaking of pie, since we're all here for baking tips and such, let's have a chat, shall we?

So, pie. It's pretty much where it's at. Pie can be awesome, pie can be pretty craptastic - the deal breaker for me? The crust. I've had too many a pie crust that taste like bitter, slightly burnt and crumbly weirdness. Let’s not ruin our filling with that god awful stuff anymore, yeah?

The recipe (makes one double crust pie) –

3 cups flour

¼ cup sugar

2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

pinch of salt

ice water

Mix together flour, sugar and salt. Rub the butter into the flour with your hands* until the butter is mostly incorporated, but you still have some small chunks in there. Pour in the ice water a few tbsp. at a time, fluffing the mixture with your fingers, and when everything is moistened, start forming into a ball. You want the minimum amount of ice water possible, but you also don’t want any crumbs left in the bottom of the bowl.  Cut the dough ball in half, form into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 45 minutes.

Let’s continue our chat… you’ll have many people telling you that you should never use butter in pie crust, that it makes it hard to work with, that only shortening will make it flaky like it’s “supposed” to be.

I call bullshit on those people.

Technically speaking, they’re right. Fine, I’ll give them that. But you know what they don’t tell you in culinary school? Shortening makes it taste like crap. Do you really want to smear a nice chunk of shortening on your toast in the morning? No, you don’t, and if you do… I think you probably need to seek some professional help.

As far as workability, butter has a lower melting point than shortening, so yes, you’re going to need to keep it cold, because that’s what you do with real food… jesus, what is this world coming to?

Maybe I’m coming off as elitist… no, I definitely am – but I think it’s my duty to all bakers to help make them better bakers. I’m serious here. I want you to walk into that potluck of yours and put the other pie, cake, trifle, whatever, to shame. Heck, I want you to blow my pie out of the water, because as much as I love having the best pie, I want yours to be better. Why? I’m selfish. I want more good pie in my life. I hope we understand each other here.

Let’s get on to the tips –

1. Most importantly, keep everything cold. Take your butter out of the fridge right before you’re ready, and make sure you have the ice water all set. Some people go as far as refrigerating the flour, but I say that’s overkill.


2. Don’t add too much water. It will make it harder to roll and it won’t be as flaky in the end. This might take a few tries before you get it right. 


3. When rolling, keep it moving. This means you always want to make sure you keep adequate flour underneath and on top of the dough. You should always be able to slide the dough on your surface (I like to keep continually turning mine as I’m rolling). If the crust gets too warm in this process, just stick it on a cookie sheet and put it in the fridge for a few minutes. Take a breath and try again. 

*I want to note that some people prefer to use a food processor at this point, but I wouldn't suggest it. It's way too easy to over process the butter in a very short amount of time, thus not creating the small pockets of butter which result in a flaky crust. I realize this might not convince you, and I might just have to look the other way on this one, but please just take my word for it. Also, a pastry cutter may be used, but I think it's important to know what your product feels like when it's ready.  

      
      If you need advice about what to fill your pie with, let me know! Also, if you still feel lost, would pictures or a video be helpful? If the answer is yes, I'll do my best to work on that.