Memories of Pie Crust

Do you know what happens when a cake person grows up in a family where the Dad prefers pie? You learn to make good pies.

That's what happened to me. I do enjoy eating pie, especially cherry, apricot, coconut cream, and at Thanksgiving time, pumpkin and pecan. I also enjoy the process of making pie because it combines creativity with attention to detail and following the proportions and methods that lead to a good crust.

I was probably 10 or 11 years old when my Mom presented me with her copy of the Settlement House Cookbook and told me to read the four or five pages of instructions on making pie crust. Then we talked about what I had read so that she knew that I understood what it said before I ever set foot into the kitchen or got out the flour and pastry blender.

Don't know what a pastry blender is? Well, it is a most useful tool, a set of thin dull blades or wires, gathered to each side of a handle. The alternate (prior to food processors) was to hold two knives parallel and fairly close together and use them to cut the fat into the flour. The pastry blender is much easier to use.

One of the things I read all those years ago is to have a light hand with the mixing of pie dough. I usually fluff up the flour mixture a bit with the pastry blender before I add the fat. Then I work the fat in with gentle strokes and with as few as possible, while still getting the flour coated pat pieces that are no larger than a dried split pea. Having some very small pieces and some that size helps with getting a flaky crust. Finally, when you stir in the ice water...yes the water should have ice cubes floating in it because pie dough does best when everything associated with it is cold...you should use a dinner fork and lightly stir as you add water a tablespoon at a time. As the dough clumps, gently push the clumps to one side so that you are adding water to dry flour mix. Once the dough is damp enough...mostly clumps...you can turn it out on a floured surface and very gently gather the clumps together into a cohesive dough. That gets gingerly shaped into a ball and flattened just a bit, then the flattened ball gets wrapped in plastic wrap (although we used to use wax paper and it worked just fine) to chill. This allows the flour particles to absorb some of the moisture and for the dough to relax. That will make it easier to roll out. Use your rolling pin to both roll out the dough and transfer the round to the pie pan by draping the rolled out dough over the rolling pin.

A few years ago I tried a recipe from Martha Stewart where you use a food processor to make the dough and, if you follow the instructions fully, you will have a great pie dough.

Don't look askance at Pillsbury ReadyCrust pie dough circles, either. They are ready to use once warmed up a bit and I get compliments all the time on pies made with them.

So do consider making your own pie this holiday season. A pumpkin pie is the easiest...in the U.S. the recipe is on the can of Libby's solid pack pumpkin...just be sure to use solid pack, not pumpkin pie mix. With a ReadyCrust circle, it goes together in about 10 minutes and bakes in another 30 or so and you will be a star when you present your home made pie which will taste worlds better than anything you can buy. If you want more of a challenge, you can roast halved Sugar Pie pumpkins, then puree the cooked pumpkin in your food processor after making that great food processor pie dough. If you are careful there will be scraps of dough to use to decorate the top.

For a Pumpkin Pie Spectacular pie, try the recipe HERE. You will be a dessert hero!

Try This Crust

I know that I do a lot of baking, most of it from scratch, but for a number of years when it came time to do a pie, I used the ReadyMade Crusts from Pillsbury. For a long time they were almost as good as homemade and a whole lot easier. Recently I've not been happy with the crust of my pies, so have been on the lookout for a new pie crust recipe.

As a young girl I learned how to make really good pie crust from scratch. My Mom sat me down with the Settlement House Cookbook and had me read four or five pages of instructions before I could even try making pie crust on my own. They emphasized that the ingredients be cold, that the water be iced and that a light hand be used in mixing everything together, tossing tablespoons of ice water with the dry ingredients, then gently gathering the clumps together into a dough. A lot of work, but the results were a delicious, flaky pie crust.

Recently I came across a Martha Stewart recipe for pie crust made in a food processor. It came with almost as many instructions as that first crust I made, but I found that encouraging since my first encounter with a Martha Stewart recipe was the infamous Chocolate Crepe Cake. In that instance the recipe was more crap than crepe, so I was a bit leery of this one, too.

For Thanksgiving our near neighbors invited us to come join their holiday family dinner. I offered to bring a couple of pecan pies and decided that I would try Martha's recipe for the crust. I know, I know, it is stupid to try a new recipe for a dinner where you will be meeting a bunch of new people, especially when they have been touted as excellent cooks and bakers. Well, I guess I've always been willing to try a new recipe when failure will be a real problem. Fortunately, this time the recipe was a good one.

I made the crust, our daughter made the fillings, baked them in the new stove, chilled 'em while we went to the Community Church and helped out with the free Thanksgiving dinner serving and cleanup, then whipped up some cream to go with them once we got home. After a really excellent meal that included local duck, mixed wild mushroom stuffing, roasted veggies with balsamic and pomegranate arils and more, we served up the desserts, including the pecan pies.

They were a hit! The crust was excellent, the filling a bit goopy and great, the pecans nice and toasted. So next time you need a nice, buttery, flaky delicious crust, try this recipe:

Food Processor Pie Crust from Martha Stewart Test Kitchen

makes 2 disks

2 sticks unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces, divided
2 1/2 cups all-purpouse flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup ice water

Freeze 3/4 of the butter pieces in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet until hard, at least 30 minutes. Refrigerate the other 1/4 of the pieces. The frozen pieces stay chunky after being pulsed, creating steam pockets when baked (the key to flakiness) and the refrigerated bits get worked into the pastry, giving it a tender texture.

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor work bowl. Add refrigerated butter (the smaller amount of the butter bits). Pulse to combine, about 10 times. Add frozen butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some blueberry-sized clumps.

With the processor off, add the ice water. Immediately pulse until water is just incorporated, about 10 times. Squeeze a small amount of dough to make sure it holds together. Pulse a few times more if needed. When you squeeze the dough it should remain crumbly, but come together. Don't pulse it so long that it forms a ball. Adding water while the processor is running  and over-pulsing are bad ideas... could lead to tough dough.

Lay out 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Empty half the dough onto each piece. Bring edges of wrap together to gather dough and form a round mass. Press the dough this way to form a rough round mass, and press on top of the wrap to form a disk. The processed dough should resemble uneven crumbs. When you empty the mixture from the processor bowl out onto the plastic wrap, some pieces will be tiny, others will be in clumps. That is perfect! The gathered plastic wrap method of forming the disk simultaneously has you gathering the crumbs into a cohesive dough and shaping it.

Roll out disks, still wrapped in plastic, to 1/2 inch thick rounds, about 8 inches in diameter. Rounds this size will chill more quickly that hockey-puck sized ones and will soften more uniformly when removed from the refrigerator.

Refrigerate at least 45 minutes and up to 2 days. Dough can be frozen up to 1 month. 

For the pecan pies themselves, use the recipe on the Karo Dark syrup bottle...or e-mail me.