strange pie dough recipe

[mrbigjas]

OK in the ongoing saga of learning a few things about pastry, i'm trying to figure out the deal with the pie crust my mom has always made. i understand the concept, but i've just never seen another pie crust recipe that works like this. she said it was off an old crisco can, but i can't find any reference to it on the crisco site.

(i should clarify before i even start: this is my favorite pie crust, especially when it's surrounding a (NOT ADULTERATED WITH STRAWBERRIES) rhubarb pie. i know it uses crisco instead of butter. i know it's weird. but i'm tellin ya it's great. it's flaky, yet it doesn't fall apart, but it's not tough or anything, which you'd think it would be.)

so anyway, you take 2 c of AP flour, and a teaspoon of salt. remove 1/4 of that mixture, and add 1/3 c of water to that to make a paste. then you mix 7/8 c of crisco into the remaining dry ingredients, and you mix it up till it's basically almost like clay--you don't have to worry about keeping it cold or barely mixing or making it like cornmeal or anything. you finish up by mixing the flour-water paste into the flour-crisco paste, but that's where you're careful to make sure you're not overmixing.

you end up with a pretty sticky dough that's not real easy to handle, but as i said, it makes for a great pie crust. that's the crust for a 9 or 10 inch double crust pie.

so have any of you heard of this? or anything similar? i admit i'm a novice to the baking world, but i've just never seen anything like it.

Edited July 7, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)

[chiantiglace]

sounds like if you just over mix any pie dough recipe thats what you will get.

Its all personal preference.

[Luckylies]

sounds like a riff on puf pastry to me. Detrempe + fat = puff.

What I'm saying (and I'm nooooo expert) is if you carefully stratify fat and flour (like not overmixing the two doughs you'll manage to make a rough version of puff pastry. Sounds good to me. Wonder if you can do it with butter and crisco?

[sparrowgrass]

With my baking skills, I probably shouldn't be posting here, but I made the best piecrust of my life the other day.

I used Crisco and frozen butter, half and half. I cut the Crisco into the flour til it was fine, and then grated (using the large holes on my triangular grater) the frozen butter into that. Mixed lightly, and then stirred in the water just till it would hold together.

It was flaky and crisp.

[chiantiglace]

pie dough is a rough puff pastry. Just give pie dough a few three folds, and looky there, you have blitz puff dough.

[Ling]

sounds like a riff on puf pastry to me. Detrempe + fat = puff.

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When I read the initial post, this is what I thought too--until he said that the detrempe and fat doughs are mixed thoroughly together. That would mean the fat and detrempe aren't layered anymore...therefore, not a laminated dough. Is that correct?

[McDuff]

sounds like a riff on puf pastry to me. Detrempe + fat = puff.

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When I read the initial post, this is what I thought too--until he said that the detrempe and fat doughs are mixed thoroughly together. That would mean the fat and detrempe aren't layered anymore...therefore, not a laminated dough. Is that correct?

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I can't imagine there's any layering going on here. Mixing these two doughs thoroughly is going to completely mash all the fat into the flour, and you want chunks and thin layers of fat to make a pie dough flaky. And that's what I think this recipe is...flaky.

[mrbigjas]

sounds like a riff on puf pastry to me. Detrempe + fat = puff.

←

When I read the initial post, this is what I thought too--until he said that the detrempe and fat doughs are mixed thoroughly together. That would mean the fat and detrempe aren't layered anymore...therefore, not a laminated dough. Is that correct?

←

thanks for the answers folks, this is intereting.

the fat and the detrempe (that's a new word for me) are not mixed thoroughly, but neither are they laminated meticulously. her instructions say to mix them, but you should be able to see streaks of the flour-water mixture in the dough. so yeah, i think you all are correct--a bastardized crisco puff pastry, such as it is, made in such a way as to not puff.

[chiantiglace]

its not a puff pastry in any way shape or form. There is NO folding/lamination, none. All it is, is a pie dough, just another ones way of making it with a slightly different characteristic.

[mrbigjas]

thanks y'all--i sure learn a lot here.

Edited July 7, 2006 by mrbigjas (log)