Tramp's Recipe Hut

Welcome back to Tramp's Recipe Hut. Today we make the perfect pie crust!

The Perfect Crust
There are tricks to making perfect pie crusts. The first is maintaining the correct balance of ingredients and the second is temperature. Flakey pie crusts are a mixture of flour, fat, and water. The best recipes have a common ratio of these ingredients: 1/4 cup water to 1/2 cup fat to 2 1/2 cups flour. Add a teaspoon of salt and you have the ingredients for a double crust. Double these amounts for two pies. Cut the amounts in half and you have a single crust. (Measure the flour by spooning it into the measuring cup, not scooping it. Scooping packs the flour; you'll have too much flour in your recipe.) For the fat, you can use either butter or shortening or a combination. (Butter is 15% water so cut back slightly on the water when using butter—though the ratio is forgiving enough that you probably won't notice the difference.) If you are making more than one pie, just change the amounts but keep the same proportions. Temperature may be even more important than balance—especially if you are using butter. The trick is to keep the butter and the dough cold so that the butter pieces remain intact. You want little nodules of solid butter in the crust. When baked, the butter releases steam and creates tiny voids in the crust. This can only be accomplished with ice cold butter. If the butter melts, it saturates the flour and the crust will be hard, not flakey. (The same thing happens with shortening but the melting temperature of shortening is higher.) To keep your dough cold, use only the coldest butter and water. Then refrigerate the dough for an hour before forming the pie. If making multiple pies, take only enough dough from the refrigerator for one pie keeping the rest cold until you are ready to for it.

Here's a five-step procedure for making a flakey pie crust.
1. Measure the flour into a deep bowl.
2. Add the shortening and/or butter. Cut it into the flour with a pastry knife until the pieces are the size of peas.
3. Dissolve the salt in the water. Add the water to the flour mixture.
4. Mix very gently until the water is just absorbed. Do not over mix.
5. Chill the dough for an hour before forming the crusts.

When forming the crust, do not work the dough any more than needed. Two things happen when the dough is worked too much—both bad. First, working develops the gluten and toughens the crust. Second, the dough warms and the butter melts. Roll the dough out to a uniform 1/8-inch thick. Use a toothpick to measure thickness. Use the pie pan to make sure that you have enough dough. The dough should protrude beyond the pie pan by one inch on all sides. Carefully place the crust in the pan and press the dough against the sides and bottom to avoid air pockets.