I think there could be added deliciousness in my life.

September 29, 2009 9:37 AM

Occasionally I want to cook something that requires a (savory) pie or pastry-type crust of some sort, and I'm completely at a loss.

That puts the world of quiches and pot pies (or whatever) out of my grasp.

I can make pizza crusts and breads, but I don't know how to do the thing with the butter. You know. And the chopping it into the flour. And the keeping it cold thing. That thing. Then refrigerating, rolling it out. All of it. I am in general a good cook, comfortable in the kitchen, and my attention to detail is better than this post makes it seem, I'm just not much of a baker and I'm intimidated by dough.

I know there are different kinds and different techniques. I'm looking for simple, reliable, not-time consuming recipes for pie crust type things that can be added to savory dishes. I am not particularly interested in desserts or sweet things.

I'm also interested in other things I could do, other than quiches and pot pies. And recipes for those as well, if you got 'em.

Apologies if this is incoherent.

posted by A Terrible Llama to food & drink (36 comments total)

This is what you want. Alton brown explains baking - methods, techniques, and a few recipes.
posted by anti social order at 9:44 AM on September 29

Incorporate the fat into the flour with a pastry blender. It's blended when the fat is somewhere between rough sand and tiny pebble size lumps--you can vary this depending on the crust you want to make. Keeping it cool prevents the fat from melting and turning the crust to goo, and makes it handle-able and rollable when you want to use it.

Different solid fats will give different qualities to the crust--which is why otherwise unhealthy, unattractive items like lard find their way into crust recipes.

A couple of run-throughs, and I'm sure you'll catch on right away.
posted by gimonca at 9:46 AM on September 29

I've just found a pastry recipe that I love. It goes something like this:
150g flour
2 Tbls fat of some sort
60g HOT water
2 tsp lemon juice/vinegar/wine

Mound flour onto cutting board, creating a crater in it. Heat fat until melting in cup and add water and acid. Stir well then pour 1/2 slowly into flour volcano. Use a blunt knife to cut & mix flour + liquid. Add more liquid until the dough sticks together, without being sticky. Roll into a ball, clean off cutting board, dust with flour and then, using plenty of flour to keep it from sticking, roll out.

Makes pliable dough, slightly crumbly pastry when cooked. The warmer you keep the dough, the easier it is to work with. If you're looking for a flaky pastry, this one might not be quite what you're looking for, but it is damn easy to make.
posted by brambory at 9:47 AM on September 29

I know this is not really a direct answer to your question, but . . .

Making pies used to make me see red. I wanted to kill. The frustration level was incredible.
I am a competent baker, but shortcrusts were just too much.

Practice. That's the only thing that made it work for me. (Well, practice and wax paper.)

Find a recipe. Make it multiple times. If you are in the northern hemisphere, it is a great time to make pies. If you are not in the northern hemisphere, it is also a great time to make pies.
Start making pies.

My personal hints:
Use a food processor with a blade if you have one.
If not, purchase a pastry cutter.
Avoid using the old Grandma methods of two forks or two knives in a bowl. Learn those after you have mastered the easier methods.
Keep your shortening, lard or butter in the fridge until you need it.
Always feel free to put the dough (at any stage) back into the fridge to avoid having the fat melt into the flour.
Use very cold water.
Try the Cooks Illustrated recipe that uses vodka. The alcohol gives you a buffer that other recipes do not. It works pretty well.


But most of all, practice. People love pies as presents.
posted by Seamus at 9:48 AM on September 29

For a traditional pie crust that can be used for savory dishes, I use the method Julia Child uses in The Way to Cook. She lays it out well and there are photos to help you along. One thing that she does that really helps my dough come together is she smears the mixed dough out on the board with her palms a few times.

To take another route, Cooks Illustrated makes a pie dough for things like quiches and tarts that you take chunks of and squish into place. Pretty flippin' easy.

You could also buy frozen puff pastry and do things like tomato tarts.
posted by Foam Pants at 9:49 AM on September 29

Sorry to interject but I already have two questions:

If I do this in the food processor (and hell yes)--what size little bits should I be looking for? Same as the rough sand Gimonca mentions? Do I just pulse pulse pulse until it's the right consistancy, and if I need to keep it cold, would it help if I kept the blade in the freezer or something?

and:

What's the 'best' fat? Lard? Butter? Crisco?

And lastly I should mention that I'm totally a play it by ear cook, so I'm better at following basic guidelines or proportions than recipes, though if that's not the way crusts work I can come to accept it.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 9:54 AM on September 29

Are you near San Francisco? I'd gladly trade pastry dough classes for yeast dough classes, as my yeast doughs are terrible.
posted by mollymayhem at 10:01 AM on September 29

And lastly I should mention that I'm totally a play it by ear cook, so I'm better at following basic guidelines or proportions than recipes, though if that's not the way crusts work I can come to accept it.

That's why you have trouble baking. You need to learn the rules before you can break them. There are reasons behind ingredients used, the order in which they are mixed, and at what temps they're cooked. Check out Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking. I think he includes a pot-pie/casserole recipe that uses biscuit dough as a topper. If he doesn't, there are tons of recipes for this, even one on the back of a Bisquick box.

Actually, check out anything Alton Brown does. The man is a genius, and for me, having the explanation of why something needs to be done makes it much more likely that I'll listen. That said, I destroyed his pie crust recipe last night. I think I let it get too warm.

Michael Ruhlman's Ratio might appeal to you, too.
posted by runningwithscissors at 10:03 AM on September 29 [1 favorite]

What's the 'best' fat? Lard? Butter? Crisco?

Lard or butter. Never shortening.
posted by sunshinesky at 10:05 AM on September 29

Pie crust is simple to make yet mysterious. Mine turns out great every time. I'll explain it quickly.

I use the Joy Of Cooking Recipe:

2 C flour
1 teaspoon salt
sift these together

2/3 cup shortening
2 tablespoons butter
divide both of these in half, and sort of cube them up as best you can. put these in the freezer to chill down for about 30 minutes.

You already know the trick is to keep everything cold... So once the fats are a bit frozen, put the first half into the flour mixture and use a pastry cutter to cut it in until it resembles sort of grainy meal. This takes longer than you think. Then stow the whole bowl in the fridge for 15 minutes or so to rechill the fats and the flour. Take the second half of the fats out of the freezer and cut THAT into the flour, again, for longer than you think. I probably work the dough for around 10 minutes of steady aggressive pastry-cutter action. If it's a warm day, I will rechill the bowl for 15-20 minutes halfway through because the point is to make sure the fat never gets warm enough to actually absorb the flour, only that it gets coated by it.

After cutting in the fats, I let the whole bowl chill for a good half hour in the fridge.

Next, you want to sprinkle the flour/fats mixture with:
4 tablespoons of water

You might want to take a fork and lift the top layer of already-wet mixture to get some water underneath, but be gentle. The more you handle the dough, the less likely it is to be flaky and wonderful.

Once you have the water on the dough, start to mix it gently with a fork. (For some reason, spoons will smear the fats and flour too much.) If you have to add water, do it just a few drops at a time, at most add 1 more tablespoon.

It's okay at this point if the dough seems like it's not actually wet enough to hold together. you want something which sort of holds but not quite, maybe with some bits of try flour/fat mixture around the edges. Experience will tell you when you've got this balance right.

Now for the Martha Stewart part. It takes a bit of practice, but I use plastic wrap to roll the dough out. I have to use two sheets about 18" long each, and overlap them by about 2" to make a larger square. There may be wider plastic wraps which don't require this.

Use two sheets, one on top, one on the bottom. Take half the dough you've made (the recipe is for a 2-crust pie shell), and even if it isn't really holding itself together, sort of clump it into a flattened circle on one sheet of plastic, put the other sheet on top, and gently roll it from the center outwards until it is the diameter required to line the pie pan.

Carefully peel off the top layer of plastic, maneuver the crust into the pan, carefully peel off the other layer of plastic (this can be tricky if there are folds in your dough, so be slow and careful)... patch any holes with bits hanging off the edges, just don't work any of the dough too much...

And voila! You have pie crust.

If you need to pre-bake the crust, prick the bottom 15 or so times with a fork and then line the shell with foil and put dried beans in as weight and bake at 450F for 10 minutes or so.

Best of luck and enjoy all the great pies you'll make!
posted by hippybear at 10:06 AM on September 29 [6 favorites]

Pastry is an exact science. Measurements are critical here; there is no playing a pie crust by ear unless you are someone's grandparent.

You do know you can buy pre-rolled pie crusts in the freezer section, yes? They're completely fine. Nobody will say "And oh my God, that pie... the crust! Amazing!" but they taste like... pie crust.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:06 AM on September 29

You need to get with someone's grandmother. I'm serious. This is one of those things, like making pasta, that is best learned from another human. From a book or video you might be able to get the right approximation, but you'll be much better off if you work with someone who has been doing it for a long, long time.

If you lived in the Boston area and it was ok with her and, most of all, if you weren't a Stranger From The Internet, I'd ask my wife to show you. She makes awesome pie crusts and has had pie making parties with friends where she showed them the technique. She learned from her mom, who learned from her mom, who learned from... you get the idea.

She uses one of these.
posted by bondcliff at 10:08 AM on September 29

When I was in Home Ec in grade 7, I made an apple pie with a lattice crust that could have been used to shield our windows from burglars. I avoided making pastry for many, many years after this, until I started making my own tourtiere from absolute scratch last year.

There are all sorts of ways to make good pastry, but if you have a food scale and a food processor, you can use this recipe I got from a college cookery course that has worked for me in quiches, tourtieres, and the ever-lovely cheese straws (roll out leftover scraps of pastry into two roughly equal sheets; sprinkle one with grated cheese of your choice; lay other pastry over and cut into strips; bake).

Pastry for a double crust pie

- 10 oz all purpose flour
- 5 oz shortening (lard is best; use part lard and part butter if you really must)
- 1/2 t salt
- 4 oz ice cold water (You may not use all of this: see directions. And I really mean ice cold: put some ice cubes in it, then take them out and check quantities before you pour.)

1. After you get the lard, cut it into small pieces (maybe 1 inch by 1 inch, and about 1/4 inch thick), and put it into the fridge or freezer until it's well chilled (about 30 minutes)
2. Mix flour and salt in the food processor with a few pulses.
3. Add the chilled fat and pulse until it's in pieces no larger than a pea.
4. Drizzle in water through the tube while the processor is running. You've put enough in when the dough has formed a ball and has come off the sides of the processor. At this time of year, that's probably the full 4 ounces. In a humid summer, it will be somewhat less.

Take the dough out, roll it into two balls, wrap them in plastic wrap, then put them in the fridge for half an hour.

After you take it out and roll it (you can get more detail elsewhere), you will find that quiches require blind baking, while fruit and meat double shell pies can have the pre-cooked filling put in between the layers of uncooked pastry.

On preview:

1. A variety of small pieces, no smaller than sand but but no larger than a pea. Don't over-reduce: if all your pieces are small grains, your crust won't be as flaky. So make sure you have left much of the fat pea-sized.
2. Lard is better than butter, which makes a crumbly rather than a shattering crust. Skip the hydrogenated fat in Crisco and get lard. It keeps well in the fridge for months.
3. I'm an intuitive cook, too, but baking is a lot less forgiving than top of the stove cooking. You have to be strict about weighing rather than scooping the ingredients. OTOH, as mentioned above, the water added is a judgment call, so sometimes it's 4 ounces, sometimes 3.5.
posted by maudlin at 10:09 AM on September 29

On non-preview --

Be careful using a food processor. It will heat up the fats and flour quickly. Yes, put the entire bowl of mixture in the freezer between workings to cool things down.

Yes, proportions are important in this. If you wing it, you will lose.

I disagree with the "never shortening" statement above, but that's likely personal preference more than anything else.

The pitfalls of pastry dough -- not enough working the fats into the flour, not keeping things cold and letting the fats absorb the flour, too much liquid, and too much working of the dough. If you avoid all those things, you'll have great dough every time.
posted by hippybear at 10:17 AM on September 29

Another baking tip- get a scale if you don't already have one, and look for recipes that use weight as a measurement. It's a lot more accurate this way.
posted by sunshinesky at 10:18 AM on September 29

Here's the most amazing trick I learned when making pastry or anything that requires cutting butter into flour (crusts, scones, etc): Freeze the butter and then grate it. Mix the grated butter into the floor for a little bit and voila! Perfect consistency.

Here's the link to my favorite butter pastry recipe. Works for pot pies, pie crust, etc. Super simple (esp. if you use the grated butter method). The recipe says to chill it 4 hours to overnight, but you'll be ok if you don't chill it. I would recommend chilling it for at least an hour for a super flaky crust, but it's not completely necessary.
posted by Kimberly at 10:20 AM on September 29 [4 favorites]

I could never get it quite right either so I make Pate Brisee from the Joy of Cooking book. Basically take butter (1/2 cup) and rub it with your warm hands into flour (2 cups) and salt (1/2 tsp), add some water (5 to 6 TBSP's) a little at a time 'til the dough forms a ball. Refrigerate for a few hours and, you're good to go. Works with sweet and savoury plus, it freezes well.
posted by squeak at 10:22 AM on September 29

Hydrogenated fat isn't something you want to eat every day, but Crisco was my mom's secret to pie crust, and she used to make them daily in her job as a stove-demonstrator. Really.
posted by tizzie at 10:30 AM on September 29

The crust I use for lattice pies has 3 cups flour, 10 tbsp butter & 7 tbsp shortening (cut into 1/2 inch cubes, put in the freezer 30 minutes before starting), 1 tsp salt, 2 tbsp sugar, and 8-10 tbsp ice water. I generally food-process the dry ingredients and the fats to the "coarse sand" consistency, use a large spatula to fold in the ice water until it's just a bit tacky to the touch, smoosh it into two disks (one a little bigger than the other), wrap them in cling film, and refrigerate for 45-60 minutes before rolling it out. Once it's in the pie pan I refrigerate it again for about 30 minutes (along with the rolled out and cut strips of lattice), before filling and baking.

For a non-lattice single-crust pie/quiche I use a slightly different recipe: 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tbsp sugar, 6 tbsp butter, 4 tbsp shortening; all steps are the same.
posted by vilthuril at 10:35 AM on September 29

Try learning about flour/water ratios first. You can practically see pancake batter is at the bottom some place, while bread is in the middle, and dry things like old style muffins are near the top.

The thing that tripped me up was what we call "moisture" isn't about water at all - it's fat. When our hands our dry rubbing water on them just dehydrates them more. The moisturizing creams have oils in them and that's what moisturizes.

So with pastry doughs/croissants/etc., they are a bit on the "less water" side but are moist (have fats from oil). When they cook those fats add flavor the same way as they do in meat or whatever, and don't get watered down because the extra water isn't there to do that to them.

Hopefully that'll add context to the recipes and what not that you're trying and help with your comfort level.
posted by jwells at 10:36 AM on September 29

Have you tried ready-made phyllo / filo dough? It goes very well with savory dishes, and it makes for a nice change from the traditional crusts.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 10:45 AM on September 29

Pie crust recipe:

2:1 flour:butter (I don't use lard, but it's also fine). 1 cup flour is a single crust, 2 cups a double. I usually scant the flour a little.

The butter should be cold. I take it out of the fridge right before I use it.

I use a food processor and haven't had trouble. I use cold but not frozen butter because it's easier to mix quickly and the food processor doesn't heat up. (I use a Cuisinart. If your food processor is heating up making pie crust, something is wrong.) It should be fairly large grains here, as well as a significant number of larger pieces. Do not overmix; I don't think it takes 60 seconds. Mix in cold water (I use ice water) until it just makes a ball. This is usually a few tsp of water.

Roll the ball in saran wrap, put it in the fridge for an hour. A double crust should be split now. (I often skip this step, but it's best not to.)

A lot of this is sort of an intuitive feel -- if you know anyone who makes crusts well, they'd be good advice, but if you don't, then you will get to learn how big the pieces should be etc with experience. I sometimes make crusts with egg and sugar for sweet pies, or a pate brisee for either, but they all require fairly similar textures at the same point in their making.
posted by jeather at 10:48 AM on September 29

How to - pie crust videos
How to - blind bake video
How to - pie crust recipes
posted by leigh1 at 10:48 AM on September 29

I am a pie baker. Here is my pie crust recipe - I use it for both fruit and savory pies. Follow it exactly and your pie crusts will be flaky and delicious. I have used both Crisco and butter and I've found that Crisco makes a flakier crust. I use the food processor method and I follow it exactly. I like it because it tells you exactly how many pulses to use. I roll the crust out on a Silpat mat, with a little flour and I've found that the less you work it and handle it the better it turns out.

I've used a pastry blender also and I find the food processor works much better. I think that's because you end up working the dough a lot less with the food processor.
posted by Kangaroo at 10:51 AM on September 29

Pie crust is time consuming, swear inducing, and offically banned by my wife in our house. I love to make it, but I am very dis-satisfied with my consistency and if it goes bad, I generally loose it in a stereotypical chef rant. Note: I sable like a champ, I pick it up like a donkey.

Sabling the crust is I think what you mean by doing the thing with the butter... The fine art of effectively creating plates of butter wrapped in flour is sort of like chipping paint. The key things are very very cold butter and very very cold water. The principal reason that you want them cold is you hamper the fat separation. Once the fat separates and the glutens get over-worked its pretty easy to wind up with an overly soft dough that is simultaneously perpetually stuck to things and limp - meaning it is hard to work with. To sable correctly, think of planing a board: you are just scraping off one layer of butter and squishing it into the flour. This should force the glutens to grow more sideways rather than vertical, meaning you get flaky and not mushy.

I don't use a pastry blender for crust (its for biscuits where you are mixing liquid and flaked), I use a flat pastry blade: cut the butter directly into the flour, and smash the piece flat. The next cut removes the smashed butter flour chip off the blade. I continue to make the platelets, then mix them once more, and cut a second time. I'll then knead once, and chill before rollingand transferring into a pie pan. At some point during this, something usually goes wrong for me, and my wife generally makes me put the dough back in the fridge and I get a time out.

My wife loves me, she loves when I cook, yet she always makes sure that there is store bought crust in the house before she ever suggests we make a pie...
posted by Nanukthedog at 10:52 AM on September 29

I'm totally a play it by ear cook

With pastry, you can only be a play-it-by-ear cook after you have lots and lots of experience and you've learned not only the basic ratios but how to "feel" the proper consistency of doughs with your hands. This is the skill that the proverbial grandmothers had, and it simply takes lots and lots and lots of practice. Until you gain those skills, use one of the fine recipes above; it's really not very hard at all to make a basic pie crust.
posted by agent99 at 10:54 AM on September 29

I can make a passable pie crust, but I usually just get pillsury pre-made pie crusts from the cooler aisle. They're very tasty, and absurdly easy. I make pie a lot more often.
posted by theora55 at 11:30 AM on September 29

Seriously, just buy frozen puff pastry for things like pot pies and tarts and store bought pie shells for quiches. I love to cook and I'm often good at it, but you don't have to make everything from scratch.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:49 AM on September 29

I am not "yelling" at anyone, just want to make sure the recipe bit sticks out:)

IN THE FOOD PROCESSOR - COLD BUTTER CUT INTO A FEW CHUNKS + DRY INGREDIENTS + A LITTLE DRIZZLED COLD H2O (DEPENDING ON HUMIDITY.) USUALLY 2 TO 4 SHORT PULSES! YOU ARE LOOKING FOR THE CONSISTENCY OF FINE PEBBLY SAND. THIS DOES NOT NEED TO BE PERFECT, JUST DONE QUICKLY.

I am the worst worst worst when it comes to pastry. Truly. So, if I tell you it is easy, it is!

You want cold stiff butter, but not frozen. A few short pulses, only, because you do not want to overwork the dough. Overworking the dough is bad because it develops gluten. Gluten is your friend for chewy breads, your enemy in the realm of flaky tender pastry.

YOU PASTRY DOUGH WILL "COME TOGETHER" WHEN YOU DUMP IT OUT OF THE PROCESSOR AND SMASH IT INTO A BALL. IN THE PROCESSOR BOWL, IT WILL LOOK LIKE PEBBLY SAND, SEE ABOVE.

Rest, refrigerate, or roll it out right away... whatever you have time for. Don't let pastry dough kick your ass, Llama. Seriously;)

Good luck.

((PS - I also usually by frozen pastry unless I'm working in a professional situation. I check the ingredients on the package and stay away from the fake stuff. Cheers.))
posted by jbenben at 12:16 PM on September 29

Like everyone else here, I have my own recipe for sweet pie crust, but for a savory pie, it's nice to use something a bit different. I discovered this yeasted whole wheat pie crust recently, and it is awesome.
posted by dizziest at 12:26 PM on September 29

I'm going to second Seamus's recommendation for the Cooks Illustrated recipe using vodka. It is my "tried and true" recipe. The bonus for me is that my pastry blender isn't dishwasher-able while my food process parts are.

Another option for savory pies is a mashed potato crust or biscuit dough topping. Both are dead easy.
posted by vespabelle at 12:50 PM on September 29

I just started using this pie crust recipe from Gourmet magazine, and I don't think I'm going back to any other versions. It works perfectly, it's easy and fast, and renders an incredibly tender, buttery crust. I blend it in the food processor - neat, and super easy.
posted by Miko at 1:48 PM on September 29

It sounds like other posters have given some good recipes and very similar to the one I'm about to link to but I've had very good luck with it, it's fairly easy (food processor!), and the author describes (with words and pictures) what you want to see at each step. All Butter Crust for Sweet and Savory Pies. And you can adjust the sugar to use it for sweet or savory pies. It is all butter, and I'm a vegetarian so I haven't had or made lard-based pies crusts so I can't say how it compares but it sure is tasty.
posted by radiomayonnaise at 2:45 PM on September 29

You've all been fantastic. I would have marked more best answers, or possibly, all of them, but decided to mark the ones that best helped me understand the context and what I should be looking for, but everyone really helped and I appreciate it. I feel a lot more prepared to try this out.

For those who suggest hitting the frozen foods aisle -- you may be right, and I'll give that a try. Maybe that will be what I go with in the end, after experimentation.

As for this being best learned from a mom, I would, if my mom didn't hover over me in the kitchen like I'm three years old. Seriously. I'm forty. I can level a teaspoon.

For those who recommend the Cook's vodka recipe, I would. but we drank the vodka last week. I wonder if other booze would work...No, I'm not playing it by ear. I have no idea what you mean.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:56 PM on September 29

Definitely some good advice upthread, but I'll chime in with a couple of other things I've picked up over the years:

Once you have the flour/butter mix made, you're not completely out of the woods yet. Screwing up the amount of water is just as bad as overmixing the dough, since you end up with a sticky mess that won't hold its shape, and will weigh it down enough that those little pockets of butter won't do their flakiness-making thing. I mention this only because most recipes have a surprisingly wide range of water amounts they recommend (typically a 100% (!) range, like "1/4 to 1/2 cup water"). They do this because of elevation and humidity concerns in books written for wide audiences, I suspect, but my rule is "always use the smallest amount listed, unless you're in Denver or McMurdo Station or something equally weird." It sometimes looks like it won't be enough, even after the first couple of reps in mixing it, but a small amount of water goes a long way. And at the water-adding stage, speed is every bit as critical. Once there's moisture in there, it's absorbing heat from your hands or the room much faster than it was in its flour/butter stage, and it's really easy to lose your crust here. (Doubly vexing because at this point, you won't be able to tell you've ruined it just by looking at it, so you'll make the rest of your pie and then end up with a delicious pie with brick-hard crust, and then you head for the vodka) You want to attack that bowl as viciously as you can, and try to incorporate the water in the space of about 60 seconds. Overmixing is, obviously, anaethema--once it forms itself into a ball, and there's no pile of dry flour in the bottom of the bowl, you're done, so toss it in the fridge.

All-butter is better than shortening-and-butter. You might get a little more flake from hydrogenated fats, but you'll get a purer flavor (and one that will trigger the 'nostalgia for grandma's pie' reflex in more people) with butter. I've never tried with lard, though I've heard good things.

Something that not every recipe tells you: if you're making a pie that has you fill an unbaked crust with stuff and then throw the whole thing in the oven (viz. apple), your crust spends a lot more time in the oven than it would if you were pre-baking it. In that time, the edges tend to overcook, and you end up with less-than-awesome crust. If you wrap the upturned edges in aluminum foil before baking, and then remove the foil 15 minutes before the pie is done, you'll have perfectly browned edges.

Good luck!
posted by Mayor West at 4:45 AM on September 30

Does anyone know if other (kosher) animal fats would work as well as lard? How about rendered chicken fat?
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:55 AM on September 30