Chilling pie and tart dough

[cjsadler]

I've heard/read quite a few reasons for this and am curious which are myths and which are true:

1. It allows gluten to relax

(Heard this is BS, as if your dough is properly made, there shouldn't be much gluten in it)

2. It allows the moisture to distribute itself

3. Chilled butter has better plasticity for rolling

(In my experience, chilled dough straight from the fridge seems more difficult to roll out)

4. Solidifies the butter so that the dough will setup before the butter melts, thus contributing to flakiness. (This seems like the real reason to me)

5. It prevents shrinkage

(Possibly related to above reasons?)

What's the real story? And how long should it rest/chill (I've heard 30 minutes and I've heard at least an hour).

[McDuff]

Seems to me all those reasons are valid, with the possible caveat that butter which is at about 55 degrees will roll more easily that butter at 34 degrees.

[ellencho]

I make it a point to freeze my pie/tart dough before baking for the shrinkage factor. At first I did it without question, but the other day I saw an episode of Food911 on food network and Tyler and this lady made a chocolate tart. He did not pre-freeze the dough beforehand, and when he took the tart out of the oven, the tart's high walls had become shorter and pulled away from the sides of the pan a bit. So I think that alone makes it worth it to freeze your pie/tart dough.

[srhcb]

5. It prevents shrinkage

(Possibly related to above reasons?)

I think it's partly "All of the Above", but with an added consideration of reason number 5.

Besides shrinkage, you have the formed dough collapsing under its own weight. If you rest and prebake a pie shell upside down between two tins it retains most of its size.

Turn it over and remove the top pan with a few minutes to go if you want it to brown somewhat.

SB (plus, there's no need for weights, beans etc)

[Wendy DeBord]

First tip to all: I've seen Tyler attempt to bake a couple items and he is NOT an expert in that area. I would not follow his techniques as gospel. The items I've seen him bake were extremely poor, with bad craftmanship and some with bad recipes. But he sure is cute to look at!

I'm tired but I'll give it a go. For the quick answer McDuff is right. My response has more detail-don't know if your interested in the reasoning or not.

First pie dough and tart doughs are different and the same rules don't apply equally to both.

To acheive a flakie pie crust you need pockets of fat aprox. peas size. If you over mix your dough you will completely incorporate your fat and it will become mealy and not flaky. When the butter in your pie bakes out it leaves thin air pockets which creates a flakey texture.

So you use cold butter while mixing the dough so it won't all mix in.

Then you let your butter get hard from refridgeration again so it won't blend into your dough as you roll it into shape. If your butter is too cold it is hard to roll and will break (which would be a problem for some items but not a pie crust because pie crusts have small air pockets not layers). But in this application (pie) cold butter doesn't make it more difficult to roll.

Cold dough handles better with less sticking to the table, allowing you to use less flour when you roll it out.

You then refrigerate it again before you bake it, a cold crust will shrink less. Think of how heat works -the outer surface gets the hottest fastest. Pies crusts are baked at higher heat (above 350) around 400-this intense heat cooks the outter surface quickly-that sets it and prevents it from shrinkage. Although there will always be some shrinkage and there are further techniques to help with that issue....as srhcb mentioned in their post.

Over mixing your flour will develop it's gluten which you don't want....but some development does happen no matter how deft you are in pie making. If you roll out a dough thats freshly mixed the gluten strans will be very tight and it will take effort to roll out your dough. If you wait, the gluten will relax-and I believe it will relax regardless of refridgeration like a bread dough does. There are recipes that use vinager and lemon juice which do help prevent gluten from forming even if you over mix. Which is another "trick".

Theres some truth that giving it a rest lets the moisture distribute better through the flour. But it wouldn't apply to a tart dough which has a different make up.

HTH

[chromedome]

1. It allows gluten to relax

(Heard this is BS, as if your dough is properly made, there shouldn't be much gluten in it)

5. It prevents shrinkage

(Possibly related to above reasons?)

These two are related.

In a perfect world, we could gather our dough "until just mixed" and the gluten chains would not form. In practice, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Even if you are using pastry flour, the gluten will form strands; if you are using all-purpose flour you will see even more gluten develop.

Resting the dough, before and after rolling, allows the strands to relax. Rolling the dough after refrigeration, you should see the dough "bouncing back" less as you roll it (though as McDuff says, it's easier to roll when it's a little warmer). Giving a second rest after you've put the dough in your pans will give you less shrinkage in your finished product, as it allows the gluten developed in the rolling process to relax.

All of the other points are valid too, though, to a greater or lesser extent.