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make-ahead

All-Butter Pie Crust

December 10, 2017 By swaticarr Leave a Comment

Flaky, buttery delicious pie crust recipe for one double-crust, or two single-crust pies (or quiches). Pie crust freezes well, so you can freeze one half if not using and thaw overnight in the fridge next time you need it.

close-up photo of a single-crust custard pie.

I did not bake my first pie from scratch until September 2016.

Why not, you ask?

Well, I was afraid.

Pies looked so…complicated. The crust looked so difficult to make. There is all this talk on cooking forums of “pie genes” and how you either have them or you don’t. Sort of like the ability to do cloning. Some people just don’t have the right touch that it takes to coax foreign DNA into cells. What if pie baking really is like that?

What if I was one of those people who just didn’t have pie genes? Can you imagine the shame I would have to live with for the rest of my life as a cook and baker?!

No, it was too much to bear. I chose to avoid baking pie. But, finally, in 2016, I was so sick of eating bad pie, that I decided to tackle learning to make my own pie crust.

picture of a custard pie.

To tell you the truth, my second attempt at pie was not great either. But, this time, the crust was very good, but my filling — apple — was too runny and as soon as I had cut into my pie (after the necessary three hours of cooling), I had, instead of apple pie, apple pie soup. The crust was so tasty that K and I broke the sides of my pie off and dunked it into the apple soup, topped it with a piece of apple, and ate it as a deconstructed apple pie dessert.

On my third attempt, I got both pie and filling right. This year, I have baked a pie every weekend in November…and one extra pie for K’s birthday.

My friends keep asking me for my “secret pie crust recipe”. I do not have a secret recipe. My recipe comes straight from Chicago’s famous Hoosier Mama Pie Company cookbook, with one or two trivial modifications. The recipe below looks long, but really isn’t. It just looks long because I decided to include all the details a beginning pie baker would need to make a good pie crust. I really dislike recipes that say they are for beginners but then give so little procedural details that I have to look up almost every step and sub-technique on the internet. What is the point of a recipe like that?!

close-up photo of a single-crust custard pie.

Making, rolling, filling and baking a pie can seem like so much work, but there is no reason you have to do it all on one day. I often make my pie crust on Saturday morning, roll it out on Saturday evening, and then fill and bake it on Sunday morning. The pie crust fitted inside the pie plate will be fine in the fridge overnight. If you want to keep it chilled longer, wrap it in plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.

close-up photo of a slice of custard pie with the rest of pie in the background

My motto now is that if I am going to consume a quarter of my day’s calorie limit in pie, it must be good pie. I do not want to eat pie with gummy or greasy dough. I can also tell when a pie crust was made with mostly shortening, because although it feels perfect, it tastes of absolutely nothing. I want flaky dough that tastes of delicious butter with a hint of sweetness to complement the sweet filling inside.

All-Butter Pie Crust
 
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Prep time
25 mins
Cook time
35 mins
Total time
1 hour
 
Perfect, delicate, flaky, pie dough that makes one double-crust pie, or two single-crust pies. Although the addition of shortening will make a slightly flakier pie crust, shortening is tasteless so I prefer to give up a tiny bit of flakiness for superior taste. If you will be adding pre-cooked filling like custard to the pie, you will need to pre-bake and then cool the crust completely before adding the filling and baking again (with a pie guard or aluminium foil to keep the edges from burning. I use the same recipe for quiche. If I am making pie dough for savoury pies like chicken pot pie, I replace the sugar in this recipe with 4 sprigs of fresh (or ¼ tsp dried) thyme leaves.
Author: Thyme & Ginger | Hoosier Mama Book of Pie
Recipe type: Pie
Serves: 2 pie crusts
Ingredients
  • 196 g (1¾ sticks) unsalted butter, divided
  • 333 g (2¼ cups) all-purpose flour
  • 2½ tsps kosher salt
  • 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 Tbsp vinegar
  • ½ cup cold water
  • non-stick cooking spray
Method:
  1. Stir the vinegar into the water and keep in the fridge.
  2. Cut all the butter into ½” cubes. Freeze ¾ sticks (82.5 g) of butter for 20 minutes. Chill the remaining butter in the fridge until the second you need it.
  3. Pulse the flour, salt, and sugar in the food processor 5-6 times to combine. Add the chilled butter and process until the mixture resembles course meal, about 20-25 seconds. Add the frozen butter and pulse 5-6 times. The frozen butter should be in pea-sized pieces. If the butter is too large, pulse a few times, and check again.
  4. Add 6 tablespoons of the chilled water-vinegar mixture and pulse 6 times. The dough should start to look crumbly, like grated parmesan cheese, but should not come together in a ball in the food processor. Test the dough by squeezing a little bit of dough in your hand; if the dough holds together easily, it is done. If the dough crumbles apart, then add 1 tablespoon of vinegar, pulse 3 more times, and test again. Repeat this process until the dough holds together when tested. The dough should never come together in a ball inside the food processor.
  5. Transfer the dough onto a clean kitchen counter. Bring the dough togethether, and knead 3-5 times until smooth. Divide the dough into two halves and form each half into a ball. Flatten the balls slightly, wrap in plastic wrap, and place in the fridge to rest for at least 20 minutes (but preferably overnight).
    Rolling the Dough:
  6. The dough should be slightly cooler than room temperature when you roll it. How fast the dough will come to the correct temperature depends on the temperature of your kitchen. Let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes on the counter to soften it enough for rolling. The dough is ready when you can pinch the dough halfway into the dough with the index finger and thumb. However, if the dough starts to get closer to room temperature, transfer the dough to a plate or plastic cutting board and stick it in the fridge for 10 minutes. If the butter in the dough melts, you will have to start making the dough over from scratch.
  7. Dust your counter top liberally with flour and keep a bowl of flour nearby. Hit one of the two rounds of dough repeatedly with your rolling pin until it is twice as wide. Unwrap the dough and sprinkle the top liberally with flour.
  8. Roll from the centre outwards (rolling from end to end results in too much gluten formation which will make the pie crust less tender). Rotate the dough 1-2” after each roll to make sure the dough isn’t sticking to the counter and to help form an even circle. Roll until the dough is ⅛ to 1/16th inch thick and about 13” in diameter.
  9. Lightly coat the pie plate with non-stick cooking spray and dust with flour. Transfer the dough to the pie plate and gently press it into the pan. Trim excess pie crust to within ½ inch of the edge of the pie dish.
  10. If you are baking a single-crust pie, crimp the edge into a pattern of your choice. Chill the pie crust for 15-20 minutes. If you are making a double crust pie, fill the bottom crust with the filling and chill while you roll out the top crust.
3.5.3229

 

Filed Under: All Recipes, Desserts Tagged With: dessert, food photography, make-ahead, pie, pie crust

Mushroom Goat Cheese Tartlets

February 20, 2017 By swaticarr Leave a Comment

Easy, posh, hors d’oeuvre-sized mushroom and goat cheese tartlets that melt in your mouth. Perfect for parties, potlucks, or as an appetiser. Can be assembled ahead of time and baked just before serving.

Delicious puff pastry mushroom tartlets with goat cheese

This is one of those dishes that makes me feel “not satisfied, but superior” every time I eat it. That brilliant phrase is Laurie Colwin’s, not mine. In her essay, Friday Night Supper (Home Cooking, 2000), Colwin says,

Food is now glamorous. Glossy magazines display tiny specks of underdone duck breast lying on oversized plates with the same reverence once lavished on models wearing Balenciaga dresses. This is the age of high-fashion food. Half a braised quail, a thimble of polenta and a sprig of cilantro are supposed to make you feel not satisfied but superior.

To my mind, this tartlet is the epitome of glamorous finger food. Each tartlet, although not bite-sized, is small enough to hold with two fingers and no plate, leaving the other hand free to hold a glass of wine. Each bite delivers a tantalising combination of creamy, meaty mushrooms and crispy layers of puff pastry that melt into nothingness leaving only a lingering memory of butter on your tongue….

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Filed Under: All Recipes, Vegetarian Tagged With: appetizer, easy, hors d'oeuvres, make-ahead, mushroom, party food, potluck, snack food

Baked Tandoori Chicken: A Gateway to Indian Food

December 30, 2016 By swaticarr 6 Comments

tandoori chicken drumsticks

Way back when in 2006, I grudgingly conceded that I would have to learn to cook a few things if I were to stave off starvation. I could not keep eating out, or continue living on the charity of others forever.

In a perfectly romantic world, I would have rushed to the phone and called my mother. Excellent cook that she is, she would rattle off family recipe after family recipe. I would make notes on index cards, my pen flying in pursuit of her words. And, before you could spell “India”, I’d be in the kitchen, stirring simmering pots of curry from which would pour forth curling clouds of vapour aerosolising the apartment with the intoxicating scents of cumin and coriander.

Ha! Now wouldn’t that have been a cozy story? Alas, no, that is not what happened. One, I did not yet have a (flip)phone (we’re in 2006, remember? Think Motorola Razr). I had still not managed to find a part-time on-campus job…which means I couldn’t acquire a social security number. So, the phone company refused me the most basic cell phone plan. That is how fresh off the boat plane, I was. Besides, I owned just one cooking pot – an old, Indian (whistling) pressure cooker – so cooking multiple curries at once, even if I had known how to make them, was out of the question. No, what I did do, is join an email list called “Recipe du Jour” aimed at novice cooks. …

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Filed Under: All Recipes, Poultry Tagged With: baked, chicken, easy, Indian, make-ahead, quick, tandoori

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Hi, I’m Swati. Welcome to my blog.

photo of Swati I spend all day developing educational courses for online and blended learning at MIT. I spend my free time cooking, baking bread, entertaining my two cats, and practising my photography. During the summer and autumn, my husband, Keith, and I hike and camp. Learn more about me here

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