Crust, Continued

Of all the crusts I have made since my big crust breakthrough, I would say all told only 40 percent of them were good. Most were sandy, or tough, or tender to the point of dissolving. I just could not get a reliable result even though I felt the raw dough was consistently the same. 

This weekend, just when I was planning to make quiche, I watched America’s Test Kitchen and The Ladies were recommending we take a new approach to pie crust: a food processor.

”Done that,” I yawned, “and it was not good.” I am a purist.

I ignored the recipe until they grated some butter and froze it. 

I sat up. “What was that again?” It was almost like the frozen butter dots I wanted last year.

The Ladies explained that the way you you make this processor crust is that you combine two doughs: one for tenderness and stability and another for flake, instead of trying to make one crust that can do both and always erring to far on one side: too stable or too flaky. 

The next day I made two batches, one with unbleached flour and one with bleached, and the unbleached one was significantly easier to roll out, so it won.

Looookit. Yum.

Here you go. I really recommend you watch the episode of America’s Test Kitchen if you want the science and the The Ladies amusing commentary.

• Take 10 Tbls cold unsalted butter. Grate off 2 Tbls and freeze, then cube the rest.
• Weigh 3.75 oz all purpose unbleached flour and add 1 Tbls sugar and 1/2 tsp salt.
• Put the flour mixture in a food processor and pulse twice.
• Add cubed butter and process for about 30 seconds until it turns into a ball. 
• Take that ball out and break it into pieces and put them back around the blade.
• Sprinkle 2.5 oz flour on top and then pulse five times to make the dough incorporated and crumbled.
• Take the crumbly mixture, put it in a glass bowl, and add the shredded frozen butter.
• Stir in 2 Tbls ice water.
• Press the mix with a spatula to judge if it seems rollable or if it needs another tablespoon of water. If it does, add an extra 1-2 Tbls ice water.
• Make into a tight 5 inch disk, wrap in cellophane wrap and rest in fridge 2 hours (yes! surprising!) to 2 days.
• Sit the disc out for ten minutes, then roll it and put it in the pie pan.
• Rest in fridge 30min before baking at 350.

 

Comments

[KC]

That is fascinating. I have always had basically good luck with all non-blind-baked pie crusts (or possibly just extremely low standards), but am still interested in reliable options (because as long as you don't *know* why it's coming out right, maybe it will someday change and will *stop* coming out right and then you will have the tools to fix it!). I guess: I would love to hear updates regarding whether this recipe+technique turns your 40% success rate into something more consistently pleasing.

[TheQueen]

KC - I promise I will give updates.