Pie Crusts (Or, Word to my Mother)

It may surprise you to know that my mom does not like cooking.  In fact, I owe my love of cooking to her hatred of it as much of my time in the kitchen was really a course in survival.  That’s not to say that she doesn’t know her way around the kitchen, but in a world often divided into bakers and cooks, she is most definitely a baker.  Her lemon meringue pie is legendary in the family and came in second in a pie contest in the sixties – though history will judge.  The winner was apparently some pink fluffy strawberry nonsense that was in vogue at the time.  People in the know still make special requests for the lemon meringue – sometimes months in advance.

Part of what makes my mother’s pies so special is the flakey crust that cannot be bought in the freezer section of the grocery store.  In fact, right before I moved out of the house, I made sure that she taught me how to properly make a pie crust.  It turns out that it’s not so much the particular ingredients or ratios, but how you handle it.  Unlike bread, which is lovingly kneaded, pie crust is best treated coldly and gingerly – it’s apparently the frigid b*tch of the baking world.

Let’s look at the ingredients:

Flour

All-purpose flour is just fine.  If you decide you want a whole wheat pie crust, it will be a bit more difficult to work with, so either use a mix of whole wheat and all-purpose, or as long as you are buying whole wheat flour, get whole wheat pastry flour (just don’t try to make bread with this as there is not enough gluten to hold the gas required for the bread to rise).

Fat

Pie crust is full of fat.  Get over it.  Once you have, you need to decide what solid state fat works best for you.  Here are your options:

Lard

Lard is the most traditional.  The obvious disadvantage is that it is not nice to serve pies made with lard to vegetarians or persons with other ethical issues with pigs.  It can also have a slightly noticeable piggy-taste (unless you use the fancier leaf lard), which you might not want with a sweet pie.  The huge advantage is that lard flakes like nothing else, so if you’re a mediocre pie-crust maker like me, your crust turns out better.  Also, lard is arguably healthier than butter and Crisco based on the fat profile.   Finally, lard is cheap, though if you bought it from a non-refrigerated section of the store, it was hydrogenated, making it less healthy.

Butter

Nothing beats butter when it comes to flavor.  Unfortunately, as butter is only about 80% fat rather than 100%, it doesn’t flake quite as beautifully.  (In theory, you should use 20% more butter if you change the recipe below to an all butter recipe and reduce the liquid slightly, but I generally use a combo of butter and lard and make few adjustments.) Butter’s fat content is not particularly good for you, but at least there’s a bit of vitamin A and protein in there too. 

Vegetable Shortening

Crisco is not, strictly speaking, food, so I generally avoid it.  My mother, on the other hand, has made beautiful pie crusts for years with it and it’s easy to store. I did try a substitute for it I found in a health food, Spectrum Organic Shortening, which worked okay despite its seemingly unstable consistency and have heard that coconut oil, with its similar consistency will work well too.  Both of these options are a bit pricier, particularly the coconut oil.

Beyond that is the water and the salt, and sugar or spices if you like.

Process

Here’s a basic recipe, though I've seen variations in the ratio that work fine too: 

2 cups flour

¾ cup fat (a couple more tablespoons if butter) cut up into little chunks

5 tablespoons cold water

½-1 tsp salt depending on taste and if you only have salted butter around

Optional – tablespoon of sugar, bit of cinnamon or the like

Your ingredients, particularly the fat and water, should be cold.  After cutting up the fat and measuring out the flour and salt, I usually throw this all in a bowl (make sure to evenly sprinkle the salt) and put the whole thing in the fridge for a few minutes.

(Cut up fat looking strangely like hard-boiled egg)

  

With a pastry knife cut the flour and salt into the fat until it resembles crumbs. This takes a bit of work to get it evenly combined, but do not overwork the dough.  I usually err on the side of unevenly combined. If I had a food processor, I might use it, but I don’t .

(Almost crummy enough)

Now pull your five tablespoons of water out of the fridge or freezer (unless it’s cold out; then water from the faucet may be just fine).  Gradually work this into the dough so the dough holds together in a ball.  Now, in theory, you should add one tablespoon at a time while continuing to barely work the dough.  In practice, I find this to be an exercise in frustration.  Around the fifth tablespoon is where I start to panic as the dough does not seem to want to hold together.  Time to break into the vodka.  Seriously.

Hopefully you have a bottle of vodka in your freezer ready for moments like this when a martini is necessary.  More practically though, the latest tip I’ve seen floating around the interwebs is that if you need to add more liquid, a strong flavorless alcohol like vodka will pretty much bake off in the oven so you can add a bit more liquid to make the dough easier to work with. 

Given my history with pie crusts, I usually leave out a tablespoon of the water and add two more of vodka to give me a bit more liquid to hold the dough together.  Works like a charm.

Once you’ve got a ball of dough, break it in two.  Flatten a bit and wrap each in plastic.  (Unless I’m making a pie with a crust top or two pies, I generally throw one crust directly in the freezer.)  An hour (at least, a day or so is fine) later, you’re ready to roll.

With your frigerated  (yes, that’s a word) dough and rolling pin in hand, flour your work surface (the counter) and rolling pin, and roll out a misshapen circle that will fit in your pie plate.  The trick is to do this in as few rolls with the rolling pin as possible, which is why your circle is likely to be misshapen.  Better misshapen than worked to death.   Then, place the dough in the pie plate and take the misshapen edges  and fold or press them into a fancy or “rustic” design of choice.  

(Crust gently laid on plate before pushing it down and folding up the edges)

If you are putting a crust top on, leave the bottom edges floppy, put your filling in, followed by the top crust, and then smush the two layers of crust together around the edge to seal it.  Be sure to cut a vent in the top or get ready to clean your oven.

So that’s it, you’ve got a pie crust.  You're usually baking this filled in a medium oven (325-350F) for around 40 minutes, but that depends on what's in there. 

Next up – things to do with pie crusts like meat pies and quiches.  

(A finished product)