Bottom line: hands off! Though technically, you can use your fingertips, as they don’t get as hot as the rest of you. If you’re gentle, you won’t do much damage at all. In fact, lightly fluffing the dry mixture with your fingers will aerate the flour, add a nice puff to the crust, and aid in separating the layers. But under no circumstances are you to knead. You want to get your hands dirty so bad, why not throw away that bread machine, ya’ freakin’ yuppie! You can also purchase a nifty pastry cutter for only $6.99 at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Or better yet, save the cash, dip into your silverware drawer and pull out two dinner knives. Hold one knife in each hand with the blades facing in towards the middle of the bowl. Keeping the blades parallel to each other, cut through the flour and fat over and over again until your mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Now it’s time to get wet.
Liquid Love
Some pastry dough recipes advise the use of cold milk but I have always preferred ice water. This is purely a taste thing. We all know how milk can start to absorb odors when it’s been in the fridge for a while. Personally, the thought of my peach pie tasting vaguely like scallions and cilantro isn’t so appealing. Use water and you’ll never have this problem. But regardless of what liquid you use, remember that it must ALWAYS BE ICE COLD. This will help maintain the integrity of your cold fatty pockets (yum!) and keep that gluten lazy. To incorporate the water, create a small well in the center of your dry mix and add it a tablespoon at a time, stirring with a fork until a soft ball of dough begins to form around the tines. Add just enough water to pull everything together. Quantity will vary but in general, about ¾ cup should be enough for a two-crust pie recipe.
The Big Chill
We’re about to hit a fork-in-the-road moment, are you ready? You don’t technically have to chill your dough. Just like you don’t technically have to avoid touching it. But you’re a scratch pie virgin so why not get it right the first time before starting to cut corners? When trying out any new recipe you should make sure to give yourself ample time to mess up and start all over. If you’ve planned properly then you will have plenty of time to chill your dough. This process, at its MOST EFFECTIVE, should take no less than three hours. “Three hours,” you gasp. “You said this was going to be free and easy!” Calm down. The dough is taking a nice long nap during the majority of those three hours; maybe you should do the same. Chilling the dough for at least two hours (and overnight, if you can) relaxes the glutineous maximus even more, ensures tenderness and will actually enhance flavor. How sweet?
Not All Pastry Is Puff Pastry
Puff pastry is war. Pie dough is peace-time prosperity. Pie dough is free and easy. Pie dough is light and crispy. Pie dough is buttery and sweet. Pie dough is what you need to make pie and pie is what you need in order to make it through two plates of dry turkey meat and frozen peas. If there were no pumpkin pie, I would sleep through Thanksgiving dinner. If there were no blueberry pie, I would cease to consider Maine a worthwhile state. If there were no apple pie, I would refuse to acknowledge Fall as a season. Simply put, were there no pie, I might die. Praise be to the all mighty! There is pie, so I’m a’ livin’! Pie makes it possible for me to get through the holiday season without hanging myself. Pie makes it OK to overstock my pantry with sweet summer nectarines. The fact that there is pie in the world means that I can room with a Southern preacher’s son and not feel the need to toss his beloved “puh-cahns” out the kitchen window. I need pie. Pie is my friend. Pie needs a good solid crust to hold it up. Crust is pie’s friend. If crust and pie are friends and pie and I are friends, then crust and I are friends as well and we must learn to work together.
Not All Dough Needs the Knead
Pie dough makes pie crust. You make pie dough. You use your hands VERY SPARINGLY or you don’t use your hands at all. You’re confused. “Edith,” you ask with brow furrowed “we’re talking about dough here right? Doesn’t dough need the knead?” Bread dough does, I answer, because bread dough needs its gluten activated. Gluten (or Glutenin) is one of the many proteins contained in wheat. It’s a spastic elastic substance that, when activated, helps to contain the gas bubbles created by a leavening agent such as yeast. Activated gluten + yeast = the squishy, spongy texture and signature chew that you covet in freshly baked breads. Almost all flours on the market (and there are more than you think) contain gluten. Some have a lot of it—good for spongy, yeast breads. Some have a little—good for cakes, pies, quick breads and people who suffer from Dermatitis Herpetiformis.
So why can’t you get touchy feely with pie dough? Because we’re working towards layers here, not sponge. And you’ve got sweaty palms, ya’ animal! Especially when you’re in the kitchen. Overworking dough with hot paws will activate the glutens. With no leavening agent to puff it up, your dough will begin to shrink during cooking. As it shrinks, it hardens. As it hardens, it cracks. When you remove your pie shell from the oven, you will be left with nothing more than a giant, tasteless cracker and that’s no good. So the object is to make these tiny, super flat layers that, when baked, will separate just enough to create flakes.
