rusty@sdcarl.UUCP (rusty c. wright) (10/20/85)
The secret that i've discovered for successfully making pie crusts is
to have ALL of the ingredients well chilled. I normally keep my flour
in either the fridge or the freezer so that part is no problem. The
shortening can be dealt with in at least 2 ways: pre-measure it and
stick the measured portion in the fridge to be chilled well before you
use it, or put the whole can of shortening in the fridge. The former
has the problem that you have to know in advance that you are going to
make a pie and stick stuff in the fridge; the latter has the problem
that the shortening is more difficult to measure when it is cold. I
opt for the latter and just use lots of muscle.
For mixing i just use a pastry blender; the thing with 5 or so wires
bent in a curve with a handle attached. Perhaps a food processor
would work but it is too easy to over-process stuff with them. Use
the pastry blender to cut the shortening into the flour. Basically
just keep mashing down on the shortening with the pastry blender and
do it in the midst of lots of flour so that cut-up shortening gets
coated with the flour. Keep at it until you have a mealy mixture.
Have a knife or spatula handy to scrape the clumps of shortening off
of the pastry blender. You can have a few pieces of flour-covered
shortening that are as big small peas, and you should have many pieces
that are as big as rice. The size of the pieces of shortening
determine the flakiness of the pastry; if you make them too small you
will end up with a crust that resembles shortbread and isn't flaky.
So you don't want them too big and you don't want them too small.
The second thing that i use that most likely helps is a spray bottle
for adding the water. It allows me to apply the water very evenly to
the shortening/flour mixture. Just spray the water onto the mixture
and use a fork to toss it. I just fill the spray bottle with water
and stick it in the fridge the night before. Or, if you forget, you
can fill it and stick it in the freezer when you start to assemble
your ingredients; it might be cold enough when you are ready to use
it.
Towards the end of the water-adding stage check the dough to see if it
will hold together in a ball; when it does you're done. Form it into
a ball with your hands and put it on a piece of saran wrap, wax paper,
or aluminum foil and flatten into nice round shape, wrap it up and
then stick it into the fridge. It's supposed to rest in the fridge
for at least 2 hours. This gives the flour a chance to evenly absorb
the water.
--
rusty c. wright
{ucbvax,ihnp4,akgua,hplabs,sdcsvax}!sdcarl!rustyrcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (10/24/85)
> The secret that i've discovered for successfully making pie crusts is > to have ALL of the ingredients well chilled. Not at all necessary. It may be helpful to counteract other problems, but I've made wonderful pie crusts using room temperature ingredients except for adding HOT tap water--to prove the point to people who think cold is the secret. > For mixing i just use a pastry blender; the thing with 5 or so wires > bent in a curve with a handle attached. Perhaps a food processor > would work but it is too easy to over-process stuff with them. This is a good point--easy to overdo the blending. You can do a better job of the blending if you do the first half of the shortening very thoroughly before adding the second half of it. > The second thing that i use that most likely helps is a spray bottle > for adding the water. It allows me to apply the water very evenly to > the shortening/flour mixture. More importantly, it allows you to monitor the amount of water that goes into the crust. Once you have the required amount of shortening mixed in, the amount of water needed is critical to the final texture. Since different flours behave differently, and absorb different amounts of water from the air, you can't follow a strict recipe for the amount of water. Allowing the crust to rest, as mentioned in the parent article, is unnecessary, though it won't hurt. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...At last it's the real thing...or close enough to pretend.