Okay, spill it - what's the secret to rolling out a pie crust?

[Zsofia]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Ooh, I didn’t even notice that you were doing a Lemon Shaker pie. I made that one from the Pie and Pastry Bible once. I wouldn’t call it terrible, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite: it’s pretty damn sour, and the use of whole lemons is kinda weird (for those that haven’t seen it, the pie’s filling is mostly thin slices of unpeeled lemon).

Daniel

No kidding - one of the ladies I work with swore up and down I must have read it wrong, so I nipped up to the 600’s and brought down a copy so she could see it wasn’t my fault!

She says it’s great if you pick out the nasty rind pieces. I may force her to take it home with her.

[Zsofia]

Okay, so here’s the thing - made another last night, not a big success. Once you start rolling it out and it starts cracking, how can you repair it since the act of rolling it out obviously is going to make the crack bigger and bigger? And what do you do when your repairs stick to the board like glue?

[Plynck]

@AuntiePam

Grandma made hers with lard. She swore by lard for the best pie crust.

All Grandmas do. I think they got something there…

@An Arky

Ever notice that grandmas always make the best pies? That’s because it takes that long to learn to do it right.

Sure seems that way…

If you have a KitchenAid, you might want to check this out. It helped me a lot, and it seems a lot easier than using a pastry knife. She suggests two cups of butter to two cups of flour, which makes it a bit short (as Chefguy recommends), but then you won’t have to worry about how much flour it picks up during rolling.

My variations/suggestions: Don’t forget the salt. Use equal amounts cake flour and general purpose flour. I cut up the butter into cubes, freeze them for a little bit, then drop them into the flour while the mixer is going. When they get rounded down to about pea size, I add the liquid. In my case, I use sour cream instead of ice water, just drop it in until the mix pulls away from the bowl and clumps on the paddle. Then refrigerate; although the video says not to do this, I have found it to be beneficial

What Robot Arm said, but when rolling from the center, stop a bit short of the edge. I can’t afford a marble table, but I bought a marble rolling pin. If you have enough forewarning, you can put a few flat pans filled with ice water on the rolling surface; that may help. Flour the rolling surface, pick up the dough and rotate it a quarter turn after each roll, maybe flip it over to keep it from sticking to the surface (it shows this on the video).

You can cheat (all’s fair in baking, too) by using one of these. Oddly, they seem to work better after they’ve been used a few times.