From the middle of May until the end of November, I'm a pie girl. I have to restrain myself from eating it at every meal since my mother trained me from a very early age that leftover pie is fair game for breakfast. Sometimes we would even eat it straight from the dish: two forks, Sunday crossword. Heaven.
These days we're making pie constantly. The peach tree is heavy with fruit, most markets are carrying Italian Prune Plums, and the apples are just starting to get sweet on the branch.
Crust is another matter.
One can cheat, and use Pillsbury's handy refrigerated pie crusts and I will admit, in a pinch I've done it. But experimenting with crust recipes is a wonderful experience - one learns how working with different fats can enhance flakiness and tenderness, how the cool surface of a marble slab and chilled ingredients helps keep things firm, which gives a crust that magical mouth-feel.
Shirley Corriher, author of one of the best text-book like cookbooks, Cookwise, suggests using sour cream in a crust, to make it even more tender. This is an excellent multi-purpose crust that is surprisingly simple to make. Fill it with seasonal fruit that's been tossed with a few tablespoons of flour and sugar, and you have dessert (and maybe breakfast) covered.
What I don't love about this crust is that it suggests using instant flour like Wondra which isn't always easy to find and has been processed to high heaven. However, there are no chemicals added, just malted barley flour. What I do love about this recipe is that it doesn't use shortening. It promises a flakey, light crust while still using butter. The sour cream is key.
Sour Cream Pie Crust
(adapted from Shirley Corriher's Cookwise)
Makes enough dough for 2 single or one double 9-in crust
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup instant flour (Wondra or Shake & Blend) (if unavailable, add another 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose to above)
1/2 teaspoon salt.
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 8-oz container sour cream
Mix flours together with salt. Add butter to flour mixture and toss to coat butter pieces. Put in freezer for 10 minutes.
Dump the flour-butter mixture on a counter (the cooler, the better) and roll over it with a rolling pin to flatten the butter lumps. Using a bench scraper, or gathering dough together with your hands, scrape dough together and roll over again. Repeat one more time, then scrape back into the bowl and place in the freezer for 5 minutes.
Dump onto the counter and roll and scrape together three more times. Place in the freezer for another 10 minutes, then gently fold in sour cream. The dough should be moist enough to hold together in a ball. (Add 1-2 tablespoons milk if needed to hold dough together.)
Shape into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before dividing in half and rolling out.
When crust is shaped in pie dish, proceed by pre-baking, or filling with fruit, according to your recipe.
(pie dough image: Flickr member Paul Goyette licensed under Creative Commons)
My mother and revere Shirley Corriher as our god ... I can't wait until her new baking book comes out! In the meantime, while I will experiment with this crust, I do like to use my grandmother's crust recipe, which, alas, uses shortening and butter. Has anyone tried the Spectrum shortening? Is it markedly better than the Crisco that I flinch about but buy anyway?
view kyoko71's profile
I make strudel dough (a cheat on the stretched dough) that is equal parts butter and sour cream, and then flour (forget the proportion). Well-chilled it comes out very flaky and can be rolled quite thin. Never considered it for pie crust before, but it would work great!
view mschatelaine's profile
Pie crust can be very easy -- yes if its' a boiling humid day, you are kind of screwed. However, my secret:
Just use flour, good butter and water. Make the pie crust wetter than you normally would (use less flour) that way if you need to use a lot of flour because it's sticky, it's not a problem.
Also, don't use a mixer, just use one of those pie dough hand tools. (wish i remembered the name.) The flakiness of the pie crust comes from there being different sized pats of butter in there. So, don't work it too much. And, when in doubt UNDERMIX - then put it in the freezer. when you do roll it out, there should be lots of pieces of butter.
Last -- freeze the pie crust for 20 minutes before you put the pie filling in -- then freeze it again. Got this trick from martha stewart, and it's revolutionized my apple pie. It keeps the crust flaky and the cooking fruit doesn't sogg it. Sorry for the rant! I love pie!
view clamme's profile
kyoko71, i used spectrum for a couple of crusts - meh - wasn't knocked out. the crusts lacked that certain crisco heft, if you know what i mean. i'm stickin with the crisco for now.
view berkeleydaisy's profile
"Last -- freeze the pie crust for 20 minutes before you put the pie filling in -- then freeze it again."
Great tip! I'm going to try that next time I make pie. Thanks!
view TammyE's profile
berkeleydaisy, I do know what you mean by the Crisco heft ... it's (sadly) part of what I crave in a pie crust. Thanks for saving me from spending the $7.99 on fancy shortening :)
view kyoko71's profile
Shirley's notes for the previous crust recipe say ""If pastry flour or a low-protein flour like White Lily is available, use 2 1/4 cups in place of the bleached all-purpose and the instant flour." (That recipe uses 1 3/4 c all-purpose and 1/2 c Wondra.) So go ahead and substitute pastry flour. I will be trying whole wheat pastry flour. I'm growing more and more fond of the fuller flavor of ww. The white just isn't cutting it anymore.
I've had the same Spectrum/Crisco dilemma. Crisco is a superior product, but I just can't eat it anymore. Thus the search for an all butter crust.
view marettesyndrome's profile