Pie making 2 – technique

There truly is an art to Pie Making, but once you know it, and master it, it is not so hard.
This week we are going to go over pie making techniques, that are designed to give you great success with your pie crusts.

Good pie crust starts first with everything being cold, the surface you work on, the ingredients you are using, the bowl you are mixing in. The colder everything is, the easier it is to work with and the better success you will have.

As I said last lesson the first thing you have to do is choose your flour and your fats, I suggest, you try a combination of either butter and shortening, or lard and butter depending on what you want. I put my fats in the fridge, and my flour in the freeze in the morning, and let it get good and chilled. I also have been known to chill my bowls, as well. The colder the better.

Your first task is to mix the fats and the flour. This is a place where many people go wrong, unlike with quick breads, and biscuits where you want the fat particles fairly small, you can over work the flour and fat,before you add the water. You want to keep the fat fairly good sized, bean size or bigger. You don’t want to over work it, and you want to do this all fairly quickly. The quality of your crust depends on the fat staying cold and NOT melting and being absorbed by the flour before bake time.I use my hands to mix the fat in, you can use a pastry cutter if you prefer. This is simply the way I was taught, to get the texture right, without over working it.

When you are done with that it is time to add your liquids, you want those to be ice cold too, so what I usually do is to measure out the amount of liquid the recipe calls for, then add an ice cube or two, to it, before I start to mix the flour and fat. When you add the water, add the full amount,called for in the recipe,all at one time, you may need more, rarely do you ever need less, ( remember that with the ice cubes you will have extra water so be aware of that as you pour) But by adding the water all at once, it allows you to work the dough less, which is a good thing.

Stir it loosely like you would if you were folding ingredients into a cake. Mix it just till all the water is absorbed and the dough starts to come together. This is another place where people make mistakes. Do you remember all that flour and bits of fat in the bottom of the bowl that did not mix into the dough? What did you do with it? I am betting MOST of you kept stirring till that was somewhat mixed in, then not only did you over work the dough, but most likely it will now be too dry.
So instead…. Turn the dough that IS mixed out onto a piece of plastic wrap, Very gently pat it into a ball, but leave the dry bits IN the bowl. Take the extra bits of flour and fat in the bottom of the bowl, and the rest of your water from your ice,mixix them together, minus the Ice cubes. Add enough water, to mix the last little bits in the bowl, then turn it out onto the plastic wrap with the rest. At this stage it will be slightly crumbly,but still moist, it should not be dry, or overly crumbly it should keep its shape,you should be able to gently press it into a ball.
Wrap it tightly, in the plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. I usually chill mine for about an hour.
When the time comes to roll it out, chill your counter with ice packs, or bags of frozen fruit, if that is what you are filling your pie with, chill your rolling pin, and then pull your dough. Separate out half the dough, or a bit more, the bottom crust takes more than the top, except for possibly an apple pie.
Sprinkle some chilled flour on the counter, and put the disc of dough on the counter. Begin to roll it from the center out. Do not roll back and forth, in a sawing motion,but rather single,gentle strokes from the center out. Go around the circle of dough, rolling it out, to make a fairly round piece of dough. If one side is flat…. Take your rolling pin, put it in the middle of the dough, roll one side of the rolling pin out towards the flat spot while keeping the other side of the rolling pin stationary. This helps to round out your dough, making it easier to work with.
Once you have your dough big enough, pic it up on the far side and fold in in half towards you, supporting it with your hands as you go.Then fold it in half again, making it quartered.If your ingredients are properly chilled it should not stick. IF they do, use a metal spatula to gently release the dough from the counter. Then once you place it in the pie plate, place the pie plate and the remaining dough in the fridge to cool again for a bit longer. It is so important that these ingredients stay cold. At all costs try to get it right the first time, and not reroll it, cause if you roll it a second time, it is sure to be tough, however if you have to do so, then it is best to use it for the bottom crust than the top.

Place your bottom crust in greased pie plate, and add your fillings. (we will go more into depth about one crust pies,different top crusts and different edge techniques, in a later lesson.) Take a sharp knife and trim the crust to about the edge of the pie plate, making it slightly bigger than the pie plate.

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