| Welcome to the first in a series of
4 classes on making pies. As most of you know, pie crust is for
many people a mystery, try as they might they cannot get their pie
crusts to come out right. And a bad pie crust equals a bad pie.
The goal of this class is that each and everyone of you will master
the art of making a pie crust, because if you can do that, the rest
is easy. We will also cover the basics of fillings as well, but
that will be a small part of the whole, we will spend most of our
time on the technique of making a good crust.
Pie crusts much like bread are all ingredients and technique,
once you have a knowledge of both, you should be able to master
crusts. This week we will cover ingredients, and Equipment.
I explained the different types of flour in the
bread making class, so if you want a more detailed description please
refer to that. For the purpose of this class we will concern ourselves
with two types of flour. Pastry, and all purpose. These are the
two that you will have to choose from in making your pies. Pastry
flour can be difficult to find, I found it at my restaraunt supply
store, and it was less expensive than the allpurpose I normally
buy so I do keep this on hand. Pastry flour, is not only milled
a bit different, but it is also made from a softer wheat, that has
a much lower protein content. If you can find this flour at a good
price it is worth the effort, particularily if you are a beginning
baker. The next alternative and the one most of you will use is
all purpose flour, which is not as high in protein as bread flour,
but is somewhat higher than Pastry flour. For those of you that
have not read Bread tutorial. The protein content is the gluten,
which is what makes bread dough so elastic.... something you do
not want in pie crusts. If you ever want pastry flour, for a special
project, and can't find it, mix cake flour,and all pupose flour,
1:1. That is approximately what pastry flour is. Cake flour however
is very expensive, but I wanted to let you know that you could do
that.
Much of pie making is in how you do it, which we will cover more
next week, but one little tip I will give you is to freeze your
flour that you will use for pie making. The more chilled everything
is, the better your success will be.
Fats- you have a choice, between fats.With pie
crust what you choose will most definately affect your end product.
Many people use shortening, shortening is ok, a lot of people do
not like the taste of shortening, though, and in my opinion it does
not give the best crust and really there was a reason why Crisco
came out with a Butter flavored product and it is not because it
was original :). Butter and Lard are your other two options, and
while butter makes a great crust it can be a bit hard to work this,and
the crust is not as flakey as is shortening, or lard. A lot of people
get grossed out at the though of using lard, but it truly does make
an awesome pie crust. The other thing I encourage you to do is experiment.
I often use a mixture, of either Butter and Crisco, OR Butter and
Lard this gives a good compromise of butter flavor, with a flakey
crust,if you are concerned about transfatty acids stick with the
lard and the butter. We used to do this at the bakery I worked in,
half shortening, half butter, produced an excellant pie crust. I
will share this recipe with you later in class. You should chill
your fat as well, when it comes to pie crusts think cold, the colder
the better, makes it easier to mix and easier to handle, but we
will get into this in more depth in a later lesson.
Liquid- most likely water, however some recipes
also include vinegar and eggs. The most important thing to remember
about the water is it should be ice cold as with the rest of the
ingredients, the reason is, that you do not want the fat to melt,
if it melts before you bake the pie, it will result in a tougher
crust.
EQIPMENT
Rolling Pin A good rolling pin is essential in
making a pie crust, for pie crusts I prefer marble, or the plastic
ones that can be filled with water and frozen, this is what they
were made for. The marble can also be placed in the freezer and
chilled before use. Remember THINK cold for the best success.
Pastry cutter this is one item you might consider
using, but I do not use them, I personally use clean hands to mix
my flour and fat, it gives better results. Do not use a fork, it
makes the fat particles too small, one of the biggest mistakes people
make is they over work the flour and the fat, if the fat particles
are too small, they cannot do their job of seperating the strands
of gluten in the flour, and again your crust will be to tough.More
about this in technique next week. If you can't stand fat and flour
on your hands get a pastry cutter, they are usually about $3.
A good surface for rolling is also important to
success. You have a few options open to you, you should be able
to manage this without spending any money. Again think cold the
colder your surface the less likely your pie crust will stick, or
the fat will melt. One option is a marble cut slab, that can be
placed in the freezer for about 30 minutes before you roll your
crust. This works very well, but not all of us have marble slabs
in our kitchen. You can also use those new Silpat mats, they are
very good to decrease sticking, and can also be chilled.My last
tip, is to take Ice packs and lay them on the surface of your counter,
leave them there for 15 to 20 minutes till the counter surface is
very cold. Roll your dough out immediately.
This concludes this weeks lesson, I hoped you learned something
that you can use.
Next Week We will focus on technique, and as I
have already said, and can't stress enough, technique, is vital
to a good pie crust. we will go thru, what to do with all the ingredients,
how much water is enough, and how to roll out a perfect circle.
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