Desserts
First, the ingredients and caveats:
**Flour:** Pie crust is the opposite of bread: here, gluten is the enemy. You can make crust with all-purpose flour, but it's easier if you use the lowest-gluten flour you can get (usually labelled "pastry flour").
**Salt** is just for flavour, but don't try skimping or (heaven forbid) omitting it – you need a goodly amount for the crust to taste any good at all.
**Fat:** supplies both flavour and texture. Fat separates the grains and creates layers of flour-&-fat, which is what delivers flakiness. (Note: if you're worried about calories, eat something else – there is no decent low-fat pie crust.) The most important bits of making a pie crust lie in how you work in the fat and the temperature of the fat as you add it. Softening/melting fats prevent that essential "layering" of flout-&-fat, so keep everything very cold (working in a 60 ̊ F room on a marble countertop is ideal – but who has that?).
The following are just my opinions:
o Both of my grandmothers and my great-aunts (all famous for their pie crusts) swore by a
special lard made from the back fat on cows (the fat that runs alongside the spine, not
the tallow). They purchased the back fat from a butcher and rendered it themselves into
a pure, whitest-of-white lard. I've never been dedicated enough even to try it – kudos to
you, if you do!
o Butter: has the best flavor but yields a heavier crust. The amount of salt in salted butter
varies, so if you use salted butter, you'll need to adjust the recipe to taste: vaguely
speaking, each stick of salted butter contains about 1⁄4 tsp of table salt. Adjust
accordingly if you're using salts of differing weights (table salt is denser/heavier than
others such as kosher or sea salt).
o Lard: has the best texture but indifferent/little flavor. When working with butter vs. lard,
remember that there's a big difference between weight and volume (butter is heavier);
you cannot substitute 1:1.
o Oil: There are reasonably good oil crust recipes, but this isn't one: this recipe doesn't
work with oil, so don't try substituting.
o Margarine: Quite a few cooks (including Mary Berry) use margarine, which gives a mix
of some flavor and some texture. Feel free to experiment. I don't use margarine
because I avoid eating it, but It's a good alternative if you're cooking for vegetarians.
o Shortening: Better than margarine for texture, but not as good as lard; worse than both
margarine and lard for flavour.
o My preference is part-butter (for flavour) and part-lard (for texture); vary the ratios to
suit your preference. When adding the fats, work the butter in first (because it's
harder/more firm) and then the lard, which is softer and will work in quickly.
Note: All fats can go rancid, so sniff before you use them; your crust will taste like your fat
smells. Lard is usually the biggest problem because we so rarely cook with it these days, and
if you keep it around, it may get old and have an off-smell. Lard will keep a long time in the
freezer, but still – smell it before using it: it should have pretty much no smell at all.
**Water:** binds the previous 3 ingredients into a dough. It is essential ... but too little yields a dough too crumbly to work, and too much makes for a tough crust. The moment you add water, the flour begins to autolyze, and every touch/turn thereafter makes the dough stronger (=tougher).
**Other ingredients:** As you read pie crust recipes, you'll come across many additional ingredients, but none are really necessary. Some are added to improve texture if you tend to over-work dough (exx: vinegar, cornstarch, eggs, etc.); others are added for flavour (ex: ground nuts, milk/buttermilk, cornmeal, etc.). Have a good time experimenting. I have a "Pie Academy" book that Warren and Holly gave me, if you want to borrow it sometime.
**Ratios**
1 crust: 1.25C flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 8T fat (111g) =6T butter (78g) & 2T lard (33g), 4-4.5T water
2 crusts: 2.5C flour, 3/4-7/8 tsp salt, 16T fat (222g) =12T butter (156g) & 4T lard (66g), 8-10T water
3 crusts: 3.75C flour, 1 tsp salt, 24T fat (333g) =18T butter (234g) & 6T lard (100g), 12-14T water
I'm giving you these ratios with apologies: These are approximations – I tend to adjust as I go, depending on how much moisture is in the flour. I measure flour, salt, and water with cups/teaspoons/tablespoons but measure the more critical fats in grams.
**Mary Berry's ratios (I don't use this because I don't use margarine):**
1 crust: 350g flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 175g margarine (~12T), 6T water
**Tips & Methods**:
• Use a low-gluten pastry flour (or handle all-purpose flour very carefully).
• All water must be ice cold when you use it. Before I start, I either fill a glass with water-&-ice cubes or put a glass of water in the freezer so it will be ready when I need it. (I chill more water than I think I might use, just in case.)
• Lay down a length of plastic wrap on the counter (for wrapping the dough when done).
• Mix the flour and salt in a bowl (can use a Cuisinart/mixer); wet the tip of your finger and taste the mixture; adjust salt, adding more as needed, so you can distinctly taste the salt but so it's not strong.
• "Cut in" the fat. All added fats must be cold so they don't begin to melt as you work the dough. I use lard straight from the freezer and butter from the refrigerator. If you freeze the butter, you can grate it, which gets it down to pea-sized quickly. Cut the lard in first, then the butter.
• If you're cutting in the fat with a pastry "cutter," two knives, by hand, don't worry about over working the dough; it won't toughen until you add water. That said, the fats are less likely to soften/melt if you don't touch them. The dough is ready for water when the bits of fat are fairly evenly pea-sized or smaller. Once you add water, you'll be done mixing, so wait to add water until the fat has been worked to exactly the size you want.
• Sprinkle the designated amount of water over the dough, then lightly toss the dough with a fork or let the dough sit at least 2 minutes until the water has all soaked in; avoid stirring, mixing, or kneading. To apply water evenly, I sometimes use a spritzer, lightly fluffing the flour/salt/fat mixture with a fork as I spritz – but that's harder to get the amount just right. Stop adding water as soon as the dough barely holds together when compressed. The dough will still look far too dry, but trust the measurements.
• Turn out the dough onto plastic wrap and pat the dough into a circle about 5"-6" in diameter and 1" thick. Do not knead, as some recipes suggest, and do not try to get it to cohere entirely!
• Simply wrap up the shaggy mess and refrigerate it overnight. Refrigeration is essential! If you're rushing, you can refrigerate for as little as 2 hours, but overnight is better: it will allow the water to permeate the dough evenly, re-harden the fats, and develop the flour so it can be stretched without becoming tough.
• When forming the dough, handle it as little as possible: the less you touch/handle the flour, the flakier your crusts will be. That said, rolling is a perfect time to adjust the amount of flour/water if the dough is too wet/dry: i.e., add water by spritzing the dough, add flour by simultaneously rolling the dough on a bed of flour and sprinkling flour over the top of the dough.
• When you remove a ball of dough from the refrigerator, first pat/press it into a ball before unwrapping it, then unwrap and turn the ball out onto a floured board.
• When rolling out the dough, be patient: if you press too hard, the dough ball will crack. Just keep rolling, persistently convincing the dough to stretch. As you roll, keep crimping around the edges now and then to repair/prevent any cracking. Be sure to keep a layer of flour between your board and the dough, and another layer of flour between your dough and the rolling pin. Use a bench scraper (or thin metal spatula) to separate the dough from the board as needed to keep the dough free-floating. It's the right size when it's about 2" larger in diameter than your pan (e.g., 11" of dough for a 9" pie pan).
• When placing the dough into the pie pan, remember that dough will shrink as it cooks, so don't stretch it: lay it in, gently pressing it into place, and leave a bit extra around the top edge so the dough shrinks into place as it cooks.
• Before adding filling (either before adding filling to a raw crust, or before adding filling after blind baking), dust the crust with cornstarch so the liquid in the filling doesn't make the crust soggy. If it's a pie that uses a fatty/oily layer (e.g., chocolate, marzipan, etc.), that layer can substitute for the cornstarch.