Pie Crust: The Holy Grail of the Holidays

I don’t know what it is about pie crust dough but every year about this time, as the holidays start their engines, the cooking magazines begin the quest for the perfect pie crust.  The hunt is either on (at Cook’s Illustrated) or over (at Fine Cooking). There’s a deep-seated belief that the ‘perfect’ pie crust exists and, like the Holy Grail, the Cooks of the Round Table are on the search. Well, tally-ho!

The truth is, pie dough is really quite simple to make. The dough consists of flour, fat, sugar, salt and a liquid (usually ice

The best ingredients for pie crust dough

water). You can certainly add a couple of other things to make it richer, such as an egg yolk or sour cream, but the basic dough is fairly straight forward.  The real quest however, comes down to two qualities: tenderness and flakiness. Therein lies the art of creating the ‘perfect’ pie crust. If you can achieve both tenderness and flakiness in your pie crust you are the Master of the Universe. Tenderness is a quality that comes from both the type of flour and fat you use. Flakiness is a quality that is achieved by the type of fat used and how it is distributed throughout the dough.

The Flour

Let’s start here. Wheat flour contains protein. When water (or liquid) hits the flour and we add agitation (kneading, stirring, mixing) those protein strands start to form a gluten structure. The higher the protein content in the flour the stronger the gluten structure will be.  Think pasta.  Pasta is made from Semolina flour which comes from Durum wheat. This type of wheat is very high in protein, about 16%.  It’s what makes pasta hard. Bread flour is about 14%, All-Purpose (AP) flour

Bob's Red Mill White Pastry Flour

is about 11%, pastry flour is around 9% and cake flour about 8%.  These are rough averages but you get the picture.

We don’t want too much gluten formation in pastry otherwise it’ll be hard as a rock. So, it would seem to be common sense then when you choose a flour for making pie crust dough you ought to be looking at pastry flour instead of AP flour. All the cooking magazines and cookbooks I’ve ever read tend to lean toward AP flour because readily available.  But I know you can find pastry flour if you look for it.  I’ve seen it in those bins at the health food stores, on the shelves at gourmet markets and you can order it over the Internet.  King Arthur Flour makes a pastry flour and so does Bob’s Red Mill. It’s not that expensive and it is worth it.

The Fat

What fat does is coat those protein strands and prevents gluten from forming or, at least, inhibits it. There are all schools of thought on what to use: all butter, all shortening, or some combination. Frankly, I prefer all butter because vegetable shortening tastes awful. Moreover, though shortening (or lard) will make the pastry tender it won’t make it flaky.  Only butter can achieve that goal.

Butter is about 80% fat and 20% water on average, thus, there’s enough fat in butter to do the job of making the pie crust tender.  The key for me is to get the best butter so I go with a European butter like Plugra.  It’s a bit higher in fat and creamier than American butters. It’s also a lot more expensive. Ah well, if you’re into the quest you might as well use

A fine European Butter

the best, no?  If you can’t find European style butter or can’t afford it just get a real high quality American butter like Land o’Lakes, Challenge or Tillamook (unsalted, please!!).  I like Strauss, as well, but their European style butter is $6.99 a pound at Zupans. Ouch! The Plugra was actually cheaper.

As to flakiness, the butter, if flattened and coated with flour, will create a “spacer” between layers. When the crust begins to set (while in the oven), the cold butter begins to melt letting off “steam” from its water content. It’s the steam that creates the air pocket which, in turn, makes the crust “flaky”. Since vegetable shortening has no water content it can not create “steam” when the shortening melts and that’s why you’ll get a tender crust but not a flaky one with shortening.

The key here is the pie dough has to be COLD when it hits the oven. That butter in the dough must be cold.  Period. Memorize this: hot oven + cold butter = steam = flakiness. Think puff pastry here or croissants.  All those little holes and layers in croissants are created by flattening cold butter while rolling it out and turning the dough over and over again. As soon as the dough starts to get a bit warm from working it, off to the fridge it goes.  After the dough is shaped, off to the fridge it goes.  Before it ever enters a hot oven the dough has been refrigerated for hours. Cold as the void of space!

In making a pie crust I will not only coat the butter with flour using my hands but I will dump the flour out on a pastry sheet (a Silpat) and flatten the butter so it looks like paint chips.  If you just put the dough in the food processor, the butter will become ’sandy’.  That sandy quality doesn’t make a flaky crust only flakes do.

Sugar and Salt

Both sugar and salt are used in pie dough to enhance flavor.  The main issue is both ingredients are crystals. Crystals are rather hard to dissolve without heat and agitation. And what makes matters a bit worrisome is that sugar helps in gluten formation. Ugh! The best way to resolve both issues is to use ultra-fine sugar like C&H’s Baker’s Sugar and a kosher salt.  The ultra-fine sugar will melt faster than regular sugar and the kosher salt is actually flakes rather than crystals so they melt faster, too. You want these two ingredients to melt so you don’t have any grittiness in the pastry.

Kosher salt is flat in shape

An Ultra-fine sugar

The Liquid

There’s a new fad started by Cook’s Illustrated that concerns using Vodka instead of ice water.  The theory is that alcohol will inhibit gluten formation so you can use a bit more liquid to pull the dough together and vodka is tasteless so you won’t get a boozy pie crust. I don’t know about this.  Too much liquid just makes the dough gooey and I don’t want to get this far into the process and have the whole thing turn into dreck because of too much liquid.  The whole idea about ice water is to keep the butter cold. You don’t want that butter melting into the dough before it hits the oven otherwise you’ll have greasy dreck. Yuck. Melted butter is just a no-no. So, call me a stickler, but I’m hanging with the ice water.

Other Tenderizers

There are other tenderizers you can use, as well.  A tablespoon or so of sour cream, plain yogurt, creme fraiche or buttermilk can also inhibit gluten formation because all those ingredients are acidic.  Just keep in mind that a little bit can go a long way so you don’t want to over do it.  Egg yolk is a fat so it will make the dough richer and…yellow.

Putting it together

So now that we know that the key to a great pie crust is the ingredients, the Grail Quest is now focused on collecting those ingredients and the task and test is going to be putting it all together. In a couple of days we’ll do just that and that’s only because I’ve got a dinner party for 12 I’ve got to do first and I’m already behind schedule. So stay tuned for the second part as we build that pie crust.

I hope this article has helped you understand how to create a better pie crust. If you have any questions please feel free to comment.  You can leave a comment by clicking on the comment counter next to my by-line. If that doesn’t work for some reason, send me an e-mail at chefdeb@lets-eatnow.com.