Demo: Pie Pastry Crusts

[Pam R]

It appears you are an experienced pie-dough maker, so technique doesn't sound like the problem. Was the flour different? Did you switch from low-gluten (cake flour, pastry flour, ap flour) to bread flour?

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I always used AP flour. I just mixed up 4 batches that are resting now - 2 with AP and 2 with pastry flour. 2 with vinegar, 2 without.

I realize the one difference with what I'm doing now was that I added 1 T. of sugar. Would this toughen the dough? I know many others use some sugar with no problems.

I'll bake these doughs off in a couple of hours and see how they turn out.

[Wendy DeBord]

Sugar isn't going to toughen your dough........gluten does.

[Jay Francis]

Just out of curiosity. I've been making my crusts lately using an Alton Brown recipe that is butter with a bit of lard. When everyone is making their Cuisinart dough, are y'all putting all the ingredients in the Cuisinart bowl, including the blade and putting it all in the freezer overnight? I have found that the extra freezing of everything really works well. However, I might have missed this step above, as I read through the posting kind of quick and didn't access all the recipes. But, try chilling everything down overnight sometime.

Jay

[Steven Blaski]

Just out of curiosity.  I've been making my crusts lately using an Alton Brown recipe that is butter with a bit of lard.  When everyone is making their Cuisinart dough, are y'all putting all the ingredients in the Cuisinart bowl, including the blade and putting it all in the freezer overnight? I have found that the extra freezing of everything really works well.  However, I might have missed this step above, as I read through the posting kind of quick and didn't access all the recipes.  But, try chilling everything down overnight sometime.

Jay

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I've never found this necessary. I take the butter cold from the refrigerator, cut it up into dice, then put it back in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes while I measure the dry ingredients. It actually has given me more problems when the fat is super frozen as AB suggests. It's caused me to over process in compensation.

Most recently I've gone back to the KA mixer for making pie crust. I started doing this years ago with the Baking with Julia pie crust recipe, then gradually switched to the quicker food processor method. But after trying Sherry Yard's all butter pie crust, which uses the mixer, and getting such great results, I'm eschewing the food processor from now on. The KA gives you much more control since the process is a bit slower and you can actually *see* the pieces of butter progressing down to the right size. The problem of possibly overheating is also lessened. If you haven't tried the stand mixer for pie pastry, give it a try.

[Pam R]

8 pies later ... I think the problem was that I was being overly-cautious and rather than over-mixing I was under mixing. So while there were lovely pea-sized chunks of fat in my dough, there wasn't enough fat actually mixed into the flour.

Final pie tonight was perfectly flaky. Thought it was made with 100% Crisco (kashrut restrictions) I was told that I had achieved 'a lard-like crust). I'm assuming that's a good thing?

[Beanie]

8 pies later ...  I think the problem was that I was being overly-cautious and rather than over-mixing I was under mixing.  So while there were lovely pea-sized chunks of fat in my dough, there wasn't enough fat actually mixed into the flour. 

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I had the same problem over the past few weeks (even though the crusts came out great). But this weekend I made five more pies and mixed the dough just a little longer. It was like a pie crust epiphany. Everything combined perfectly and the dough rolled out easily.

Final pie tonight was perfectly flaky. Thought it was made with 100% Crisco (kashrut restrictions) I was told that I had achieved 'a lard-like crust). I'm assuming that's a good thing?

Yup. It's a "good thing."

[amccomb]

Wendy, what do you think of the cream cheese crust?  Have you tried it?  I made RLB's Perfect Peach Pie with the cream cheese crust on Saturday-- sorry, I wish I had pics for you, but I don't.  The first time I tried this crust I thought it was really really great, the second time only so-so.  This time, my third try, I thought it was a good balance of things:  flaky, tender... and yet I think all butter would have tasted better, and I may be imagining things but it seems to me that the cream cheese makes the browning of the pie less attractive.  The crust ends up looking whiter and the browning is more patchy.  What do you think?

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I do own RLB's The Pie And Pastry Bible, but I really haven't worked much from it.

I make sour cream and cream cheese crusts for other pastries............and I find it hard to imagine I'd like those for fruit pies. But I don't know. I'll give her recipe a try as soon as I find an opening in my menus and report back.

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Did you ever try the cream cheese crust? I was thinking of using it for a pumpkin pie, but I am searching for the best cream cheese crust recipe before jumping in.

[Marlene]

quick question about blind baking a crust. I have beans so I can use those. What temp do I bake it at and for how long?

[SweetSide]

Start at 400F with the beans for 15 minutes. (Don't forget to line the crust with foil before the beans -- I've seen someone bake the beans right into the crust = NOT GOOD)

Then, remove the foil and the beans, drop the oven to 375F and bake 10 - 12 minutes more for a partially baked crust and 15 - 17 minutes more for a fully baked crust.

Partially bake if you're going to put the filled pie back in the oven. Fully bake if you are going to fill it with something that won't go in the oven (mmm, chocolate cream pie...)

[David A. Goldfarb]

I just made some little spinach-filled pastries using a crust made with beef fat--really nice crust. I accumulate beef fat from making stock and saving drippings from steaks and roasts and such.

Cut 8 oz. cold rendered beef fat (by weight) into 2 C pastry flour (by volume, sorry--should have weighed it after measuring, but it needs to be adjusted by feel anyway) with 1 tsp salt. Mix in about 1/2 C ice water and knead briefly, adjusting flour/water as needed. Chill at least two hours before rolling. Roll and fill quickly--it starts melting faster than a butter crust.

You could reduce the salt and add some sugar for a sweet dough. Some people find it a little odd to use animal fat in a fruit pie, but the best tasting cherry pie I've made used bacon drippings in the crust--not as light, though, as the beef fat crust.

This batch of pastries used about 1 tsp. filling per 3" round of dough, folded in half, and baked at 425F for 20 minutes and made around 32 pastries.

[ambra]

Hi,

After reading through this thread trying to find the answer to my question, I believe that the answer to my troubles is that I am not using enough water. Can someone confirm?

My Problem is that my crust completely falls apart. As I roll it out it cracks- but giant gaping cracks. Even if I press them back together, i can't seem to lift the crust onto the pan with it coming apart in my hands.

Is it the water? I do the basic recipe for shortcrust and I do it in the food processor.

The other big difference is, that I am using 00 flour which is pretty fine.

thank you!

[Paul Stanley]

Hi,

After reading through this thread trying to find the answer to my question, I believe that the answer to my troubles is that I am not using enough water. Can someone confirm?

My Problem is that my crust completely falls apart. As I roll it out it cracks- but giant gaping cracks. Even if I press them back together, i can't seem to lift the crust onto the pan with it coming apart in my hands.

Is it the water? I do the basic recipe for shortcrust and I do it in the food processor.

The other big difference is, that I am using 00 flour which is pretty fine.

thank you!

I doubt it's the flour. It could be insufficient liquid, yes. That tends to make for very crumbly pastry, which breaks easily. It could also be that you are just over chilling a bit, and then rolling rather too aggressively. Especially if you have an all butter dough, with no lard or shortening, and a cold fridge, this can happen I find. Try (1) forming a flat disk, rather than a ball, before you wrap well and chill, which makes rolling easier. (2) If you are chilling for more than about 40 minutes, remove it from the fridge at least 20 minutes before rolling, to let the fat soften a bit. (3) Make sure you have a well floured surface, so that it doesn't stick, and roll gently at first, with downward pressure, not stretching. Turn the dough often to stop it sticking. And remember that SOME cracking is to be expected, and that you can always patch. It's better to have pastry that is too short than pastry that is too wet ... Certainly don't go crazy adding extra liquid: no more than an extra teaspoon or two at most. You might also try using some fat which doesn't harden as much as butter, such as some lard in the mix.

When it comes to lifting the crust, make sure to do it by rolling the pastry round your rolling pin. No lifting of a sheet!

In extremis, with very crumbly dough, roll out between sheets of wax or greaseproof paper, or cling film.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

While this thread pops back up again, maybe I will jump in too...

I recently tried out a few different recipes and get some experience making crusts. The pies mostly turned out well, but I noticed that while cooking, most of the pies seemed to bleed out a lot of butter - in the clear dishes, i could see it pooling a bit in the bottom, and I guess "frying" the dough in its own fat, essentially. They definitely turned out flaky, but perhaps a bit too 'crisp'

The recipes I used were all pretty standard ratios and techniques. I'm wondering if there is always a bit of this, or whether I have done something wrong with oven temperature or something. I have had the same thing happen with croissants when I made laminated dough - a fair bit of butter melting rather than somehow being absorbed immediately within the dough.

I don't actually know what a great pie crust should be like, i know what I like but I don't know if i've ever tasted a crust that is said to be perfect, so it makes it a bit hard to know if my results are "correct" or not.