Happy pi(e) day, everyone! The anticipation almost killed me, but it’s finally here.
Last year’s pie was so delicious that I’m repeating it. It’s a chocolate cookie crust, sprinkled with toasted peanuts and caramelized bananas, covered with cream cheese peanut butter mousse, and topped with dark chocolate ganache.
Also in the works is a deep-dish, double-crust apple pie. Just because. It’s classic, it’s delicious, and who doesn’t love apple pie?
Happy eating!
Tagged apple, banana, chocolate, cream cheese, peanut butter, pie
One last tip for perfect pie: don’t fuss with it. When you’re incorporating the fat into flour, do it gently. Whether you’re using a pastry cutter or your hands (my preferred tools), you’re aiming for a sandy looking texture. There should be some pea-sized chunks, some smaller chunks, and some even smaller bits. The mixture should still be loose. Trust me, it’ll all come together in the end.
And after you’ve incorporated the cold water and made a beautiful dough, let it rest in the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes. This cools the fats back down, relaxes the gluten you’ve developed, and makes the rolling process much easier.
Whatever mixture of fats you use in your pie crust, here’s a rule of thumb: keep it cold. Keep shortening in the freezer until you need it, and butter/lard in the fridge until you need it.
Trying to incorporate warm, soft fat into a pie crust will only result in chewy, tough pie crust. If you’re after a flaky crust, then you want to incorporate the fat as small, distinct chunks. If you want to get small, distinct chunks of fat, you’d best work with it cold.
Speaking of which, most recipes call for ice water. It’s not just a conspiracy of recipe writers to make your life more difficult. It’s just a variation on a theme. If you’ve gone to the trouble of selecting your fats, and keeping them cold, why on earth add warm water and cancel out all your efforts?
Just remember: keep it cold.
Posted in Events, Food science, Homemade
Tagged butter, fat, lard, pie, shortening
Dining Out for Life is this Thursday, March 12, 2009. More than 200 restaurants will donate 25% of their food proceeds to A Loving Spoonful and Friends For Life. I’ll be at the Cascade Room. Where will you dine?
Lard gets a bad rap. Yes, it’s rendered from pigs. (But, as we all know, pigs = delicious.) Yes, it’s saturated fat. But consider that vegetable shortening, which is perceived as being better for you, actually contains as much saturated fat and more trans fat than lard.
So there.
I don’t usually use lard because it has a very distinct flavour that doesn’t agree with some fillings. Having said that, a lard-based crust for a peach pie is nothing short of magical.
Dining Out for Life is this Thursday, March 12, 2009. More than 200 restaurants will donate 25% of their food proceeds to A Loving Spoonful and Friends For Life. I’ll be at the Cascade Room. Where will you dine?
It’s taken me a while, but I’ve figured out the perfect mixture of fats to get a beautiful pie crust.
Shortening is 100% fat and results in unbelievably flaky crusts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t taste very nice. I made a pie with only shortening and found that it left an oily slick on the back of my tongue.
Butter is approximately 35% fat with water suspended in it. It doesn’t give as flaky a crust as shortening, but it sure is tasty. Using only butter, I got a really tasty, but slightly dense pie crust. Also, due to the presence of milk solids and milk sugars in butter, the pie browns a little bit too quickly.
So, the perfect compromise: equal parts shortening and butter.
(FYI: When selecting shortening, read the labels carefully. As evil as Crisco might seem, it contains far less trans fat than some of the so-called “organic” alternatives.)
