# Dotting the tops of fruit pies with butter
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 19, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601 "2011-07-19T16:45:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/1 "2011-07-19T16:45:51Z")
I make about half a dozen fruit pies a year–not enough to have expertise, but enough to have a pattern. Part of my pattern goes like this:
-Make my awesome pie crust.
-Fill it with sugared/tapioca’ed/etc. fruit.
-Put the top crust on.
-Slice vents into the top crust.
-Swear profusely.
-Carefully try to slip tiny slices of butter through the sliced vents, in order to comply with the recipe’s direction to dot the top of the fruit filling with 1-2 Tbsp butter, which I inevitably forget to do until this point in the recipe.
So my question: what happens if I leave this stage out entirely? Does the pie really suffer?
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### Author:  [@JimmyFlair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimmyFlair)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/2 "2011-07-19T16:50:06Z")
I say - don’t sweat it!
I’ve made many dozens of pies over the years, and have never dotted the top of the fruit with butter. No complaints, and no leftovers, either!
However, I do use butter (never shortening or lard) as the fat in my crusts, so I imagine they aren’t lacking in buttery goodness.
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### Author:  [@Lobelia\_Overhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobelia_Overhill)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/3 "2011-07-19T16:57:58Z")
I’ve never dotted the filling with butter. I might, at a push, paint some milk on the pastry…
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### Author:  [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/4 "2011-07-19T17:18:52Z")
It sounds like the scientific method might be in order. Make two pies, one with butter, and one without. Have your wife give someone a piece of each, without telling her which one is butterless, but making sure you can tell pie 1 from pie 2.
Have your volunteer report.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2011, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/5 "2011-07-19T19:20:17Z")
None of my gramma’s pie recipes call for this. They do, however, call for brushing milk and sugar on the top crust, which forms a sort of caramelized glaze.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/6 "2011-07-22T01:22:44Z")
I never bother, but I’ve never done a side by side comparison. Maybe I should.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/7 "2011-07-22T01:28:20Z")
Adding butter to anything is never a bad idea, but my heart might disagree.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/8 "2011-07-22T04:42:40Z")
Gonna share your awesome pie crust recipe? Or secret?
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/9 "2011-07-22T04:55:22Z")
Flour, salt, cold fat, mixed poorly, and enough cold water sprinkled on to allow you to roll out a pie crust. Same recipe I’ve seen in cook books for 250 years.
Er, the cook books. One can catch up on pie crusts much faster than that. But for hundreds of years America ran on pies for two to five meals a day.
Yeah, five. Farming can burn 7000 calories a day, and three meals might not be enough.
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### Author:  [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/10 "2011-07-22T04:58:49Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> None of my gramma’s pie recipes call for this. They do, however, call for brushing milk and sugar on the top crust, which forms a sort of caramelized glaze.
Not knocking grandma, but the older origin of this is brushing with sweet, butterfatted all to hell, cream, and a coarse, almost demerara sugar for the carameliztion and crucnch. Why go half the way, if you are going to go all out? Balls to the wall man.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/11 "2011-07-22T05:15:39Z")
> [@devilsknew](#):
>
> Not knocking grandma, but the older origin of this is brushing with sweet, butterfatted all to hell, cream, and a coarse, almost demerara sugar for the carameliztion and crucnch. Why go half the way, if you are going to go all out? Balls to the wall man.
Note to self: **devilsknew** is a guy, desspite what you thought. Not a long-lived one, but one who knew how to eat.
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### Author:  [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/12 "2011-07-22T05:30:28Z")
Eh, you think a light coating of sweet cream and sugar to a thin crisco crusted apple pie is living dangerously dietarily? That’s what I can’t stand about the leftists… Their unsubstantiated dietary fascism. Kinda like the vampires in Santa Carla. To quote Wilfred, “My Body, My Choice.”
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/13 "2011-07-22T05:53:02Z")
> [@devilsknew](#):
>
> That’s what I can’t stand about the leftists… Their unsubstantiated dietary fascism.
Um, what? There may be a few “leftists” that are “dietary fascists,” but that’s hardly indicative of the left as whole. Why inject politics into a thread about food? 😕
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### Author:  [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/14 "2011-07-22T06:02:43Z")
Because I didn’t inject any politics into this thread. **Dropzone** suggests arbitrarily and without any proof of my dietary habits that I am going to “die” from having a piece of gramma’s apple pie. You can;t get more political than that, disturbing the All- American apple pie and suggesting that we are going to omigods die from that … that isn’t science… that’s learned, and biased " media study" political fascism with propaganda.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/15 "2011-07-22T06:10:47Z")
> [@devilsknew](#):
>
> Because I didn’t inject any politics into this thread. **Dropzone** suggests arbitrarily and without any proof of my dietary habits that I am going to “die” from having a piece of gramma’s apple pie.
I thought my suggestion was that I would die from it or something very much like it. Which is obvious to anybody who has met me. I’m sorry if something political was made of it. In my case it was something personal, but tasty.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2011, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/16 "2011-07-22T12:24:42Z")
Dude, **devilsknew**. Chill!
Okay, I’m gonna stop worrying about dotting with butter. Thanks!
As for my recipe, I use a standard Joy of Cooking recipe, only I use all-butter instead of using any lard or Crisco. And I make it in a food processor. The crust doesn’t come out flaky at all, but it’s beautifully crispy and tender and buttery.
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### Author:  [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2011, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/17 "2011-07-24T05:35:16Z")
Look, I am not coming down on you **dropzone** , but I am beyond tired of the fascist leanings of the American Foodnazis that haveb inculcated popular belief.
It is simply propaganda, and has nothing to do in bits and bytes and broken down out of context to do with whole health. As a warring, conservative, fascist society which even inculcates our native left, every societal ill or taboo is seen as a war and having monetary consequences. The war against drugs, the war against terrorism, the war against obesity… fighting this war we have turned food into the enemy and it has seeped into our subconscious. This is a very harmful and dangerous societal tact to view sustenance as something that will kill us. Until American society realizes that food is our ally, and what kills today will sustain tommorow and continues to take everything everything as fad, media, and soundbite I will go French Resistance (Guerilla) against your food nazi, ass. Until we live as whole people I will kill fascist ideas.
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### Author:  [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2011, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/18 "2011-07-24T23:10:49Z")
> [@devilsknew](#):
>
> Look, I am not coming down on you **dropzone** , but I am beyond tired of the fascist leanings of the American Foodnazis that haveb inculcated popular belief.
> …
Somebody needs to switch to decaf!
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### Author:  [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/19 "2011-07-25T02:51:13Z")
…and **dropzone** casually lets it slip out that he is, in fact, an immortal…
> [@dropzone](#):
>
> Flour, salt, cold fat, mixed poorly, and enough cold water sprinkled on to allow you to roll out a pie crust. Same recipe I’ve seen in cook books for 250 years.
😃
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### Author:  [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dotting-the-tops-of-fruit-pies-with-butter/589601/20 "2011-07-25T03:00:35Z")
> [@devilsknew](#):
>
> Look, I am not coming down on you **dropzone** , but I am beyond tired of the fascist leanings of the American Foodnazis that haveb inculcated popular belief.
> It is simply propaganda, and has nothing to do in bits and bytes and broken down out of context to do with whole health. As a warring, conservative, fascist society which even inculcates our native left, every societal ill or taboo is seen as a war and having monetary consequences. The war against drugs, the war against terrorism, the war against obesity… fighting this war we have turned food into the enemy and it has seeped into our subconscious. This is a very harmful and dangerous societal tact to view sustenance as something that will kill us. Until American society realizes that food is our ally, and what kills today will sustain tommorow and continues to take everything everything as fad, media, and soundbite I will go French Resistance (Guerilla) against your food nazi, ass. Until we live as whole people I will kill fascist ideas.
I hear Hitler made the Jews eat pie.
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