How To Make Fluffy Crumbly Delicious Pastry Crusts

Cafe Society
1

I volunteer at a retirement home and one of the ladies made some pastry. Basically it was pastry crust rolled up and had cheese filling. While it was great, I was impressed by the crust. It was absolutely delicious. She said you can put anything you want inside the crust.

I asked her what was in the crust she told me it was easy to make. Of course she has to be one of these ladies that never writes anything down and heaven forbid she actually MEASURE anything out :slight_smile:

She said it was

Flour (2 cups)
Salt (1 teaspoon)
Lard (has to be lard she said, nothing else tastes as good) (3/4 cups)
Ice water (has to be cold) 2 to 6 tablespoons.
1 egg yolk (large egg)
1 teaspoon sugar (optional depending on the filling)

Those are what she said are probably right but she “feels” when she bakes.

Then she said to cut the lard into the flour and not to overcut it or the pastry will be tough. She said to use two knives in opposite directions to cut it in as you rotate the pastry.

Then to add the salt and gradually add the ice cold water, only enough to make the dough workable.

OK I went and did this. Mine was HORRIBLE. I mean after I couldn’t eat it, I put it out for the birds, and they just kicked it and gave me a dirty look, like I was trying to poison them.

Anyone have a recipe that works. LOL

I do realize it’s probably me so any clue how to make a great pastry crust. The thing was this pastry tasted buttery, even though it was made with lard. And yes I went out and got lard so I can use that if it’s better.

2

I haven’t tried making it in awhile but it was always hit and miss for me, anyway.

There’s always the ultimate shortcut: buy some pre-made puff pastry dough.

3

I’m not a pastry expert, but before they chime in, the ratio of flour to lard is usually 5:1 in a lard-based crust (and 3:1 in a butter crust.) I’ve never used egg in any sort of pastry dough recipe, but I doubt that’s the problem. When you cut the flour (mixed with the salt) and lard together, you want it to reach a corn-meallike texture. You could do this by pulsing it in the food processor or you can do it by hand. What you DON’T want to happen is melt the lard. Melt the lard and your dough becomes a brick when baked. If you want to be extra safe, you can refrigerate the dough after this step.

Then you finish by adding the ice water slowly, until the dough comes together, making sure to be gentle with it and, once again, being careful not to add melt any of the lard.
Form into a ball, wrap it in plastic, put it in the fridge until ready to use.

4

This video shows the basic method.

5

As I’ve mentioned before on this Board, I make Grape Pies every year, since you can’t buy them anyplace (except Naples, N.Y., as far as I know). I used to make deals with people who had Concord Grapes greowing in their yards, usually in the form of giving them a pie in exchange for getting the grapes.

One year the only comment I got was “you used a box crust, didn’t you?” Ever since then, I’ve made scratch crusts. I was helped enormously when I took up with Pepper Mill, who showed me the proper method of making crusts.

That said, my comments on the above:

1.) agree about proportions. Eventually you get a feel for the proper mix

2.) Agree about the really cold water. I work with a cup of water with ice cubes in it.

3.) I use butter, myself, which I think tastes fine. Everyone agrees that lard is, indeed, the ultimate for mnaking light, flaky crusts, but I can’t get past the “ick” factor. If you don’t want to use lard, use butter. I won’t tell.

4.) You don’t need sugar, egg, or salt for a pie crust, but you might for the kind of filled crusts you’re talking about. I don’t do those.

6

That pretty much matches my methodology, and I make DAM good piecrusts. Lard is the best shortening to use, and the two-knife method is the key. One trick I use: Cut about 2/3 of the shortening into the flour/salt mix until there are very small pieces, like steel-cut oatmeal size. Then add the rest and cut in only until the pieces are like peas. The colder the water, the better. Oh, and I use only a teaspoon of salt per 2 1/4 cups of flour, no egg, no sugar.

The major, major thing is to avoid overmixing, and that’s also the hardest part. You have to be able to still see actual tiny pieces of flour-coated shortening when you add the coldest water you can get. Mix with a fork, lightly, adding a couple of tablespoons of water at at time JUST until it holds together. Chill well before rolling out. Also, if your pastry falls apart when you’re trying to put it into the pie pan, you can get away with rolling it out again. Won’t be quite as good, but still passable. If something goes wrong again, there is no point to rolling it out a second time; just start over. If you don’t want to start over, then you might as well use a piece of cardboard, the results will be the same.

7

There’s a great essay about making pie crusts in Jeffrey Steingarten’s book The Man Who Ate Everything.

For a pie crust to be flaky, you need the fat to interact with the flour in two ways:

  1. coating each flour granule so it won’t turn too hard and crunchy when it mixes with the water
  2. some of the fat needs to remain in larger layers and lumps mixed through the dough so that when you bake the crust, the fat melts and leaves behind a space (causing the dough to separate into thin layers, i.e. flakiness)

Also, for it to be tender, you want to discourage too much gluten formation. If there’s too much gluten (formed by wheat flour + water + agitation) the crust will be tough and chewy. Allowing the fat to coat the flour protects against this; this is also why recipes tell you to handle the dough as little as possible after adding the water.

Also, there was a tip in Cook’s Illustrated a while ago to use vodka to moisten the dough (replace 40% of the water called for with vodka), rather than water, because the vodka moistens the dough, but doesn’t cause the gluten to form the way water does. I tried this once and it worked pretty well.

So, offhand, I’d say the problem is due to either mixing the lard in too thoroughly (so there aren’t any pure-lard lumps left in the crust to melt and allow the crust to become flaky) or handling the dough too much after getting it wet, causing too much gluten.

I never use egg yolks or sugar when making pie crust. I have some lard in the fridge to try out, but I usually always use butter with pretty good results. I also always just mash the butter into the flour with my hands instead of using knives or a pastry cutter.

Once I tried to soften a frozen stick of butter in the microwave to use in my pie crust, and accidentally melted it completely. I used it anyway and, surprisingly, the crust came out great, very crisp and tender if not extremely flaky. A similar thing happened when I added way too much water once; I just plopped the dough into the pan and kind of spread it into place. I thought it would be terrible, but again, it came out surprisingly good, I think because I barely touched it after adding the water–since it was so soft and wet, I didn’t have to roll it out or anything like i would have with a normal crust.

So from my personal experience, I think the most important factor is really not to overhandle the dough.

8

Try an oil crust. You can get it into the oven in a couple of minutes. It can’t be overworked, why I do not know. You can roll it out between two sheets of wax paper or just press it into the pie pan with your fingers. I never cut fat into flour for pie dough anymore.

Oil crust- for one 9-inch bottom crust

1 1/2 cups flour
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 T milk

Mix it all up and go. It’s really good. Very crumbly. Not flaky at all, but honestly it’s hard to notice, and I think it’s a small price to pay for ease of use and guaranteed results.

9

I would only add that it helps to chill the bowl you’re working in and the utensils you’re using to cut the fat into the flour. Put them in the freezer for a bit, but make sure they are perfectly dry or you’ll end up with unwanted moisture.

Also, I know cooks who insist that you have to mix the lard in by hand: no utensils. Seems like this would warm up the fat, but a lot of southerners make their biscuits this way.

10

OK I reckon it was I was overworking it, rather than the ingrediants. I guess I wasn’t atune to the fact pastry crust was so fussy.

I’ll try the suggestions next week, thanks.

11

What do folks think about using the food processor? I usually make pie crusts with butter straight from the freezer, and sometimes I’ll chill the flour first, but I always use a food processor, and my crusts come out fairly well. I figured that the speed of the processor keeps the fat from melting.

Would my results improve further if I worked the crust manually?