I find that people have a lot of questions about baking pie. It’s not something that a lot of us have ever seen being done because frozen pie crusts have been around for a long time. Here are a few of the questions that I most often get.
Is it worth it to make your own?
For many years, I did not make my own pie crust. I was perfectly happy with the frozen gluten free pie crusts that I could get at the Whole Foods near my house. But, now that I’ve discovered how to make an easy gluten free pie crust, I’m definitely a convert to making my own crust. If you want to make a double-crusted pie, then making your own crust it really the only way to go. I’ve tried to make an apple pie by turning a Whole Foods crust upside down on top of the heap of apples, but that wasn’t pretty at all! Tasted good, but not pretty.
Should you use a mix or make the crust from scratch?
I would vote strongly for making your pie crust from scratch. Pie crust mixes are extremely expensive, and you don’t know what you’re getting (really) until you try it out. Some of the gluten free pie mixes that I researched cost $4.99 – and that’s just for a single crust. Making your own crust is much less expensive.
Another factor to consider is that you can’t judge how the pie crust will turn out just by reading the information on the box. If you make a pie crust from scratch, then you can use the pie ratio to judge the quality of the recipe before you measure out an ounce of flour. When you buy a pie crust mix, you’re at the mercy of the manufacturer. I’m sure there must be some good gluten free pie crust mixes available, but I’m not willing to try them all to find the good ones now that I know how to make a great pie crust myself.
How hard is it to make a pie crust from scratch?
Making a pie crust from scratch can be very hard or very easy. It really depends on the recipe that you’re using. A good recipe will handle nicely and not break all to pieces on you.
The kind of pie crust that you’re making is important too. If you want a flaky crust and want to use butter or a non-hydrogenated lard, then you have to take extra care to keep your ingredients, bowls, and cutting board chilled.
You do have to plan to make a pie crust. The mixing up part does not take long, but the pie crust dough needs to be refrigerated for a minimum of two hours after it is mixed. You may also need to prebake your crust before you add the filling. Baking the pie can often take the greater part of an hour and you also need to plan to leave the pie out to cool for a few hours. This can quickly turn into an all day affair! (Or, without hyperbole 6+ hours.) I like to make a double or triple batch of pie crust dough and then separate the dough into single-crust sized portions before freezing. I put the pie crust into the refrigerator to thaw the day before I want to bake the pie, so that I can go straight to the rolling out the crust step the next day.
What are the steps in making a pie crust?
This seems like a good time to review the steps in making a pie crust. Growing up I never saw my mother or grandmother make a pie crust from scratch. They were both perfectly happy with store-bought crusts (and reasonably so since they generally only made single-crust pies) Since I didn’t have that visual reference point for pie making, the first hurdle in my pie baking experiments was to wrap my ahead around these steps was. For those of you who are beginning pie makers, here is a quick run-down of the steps.
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A. Making the Dough
- Measure out the dry ingredients.
- Cut in the fat.
- Add the water and combine everything into a ball of dough.
- Refrigerate the dough for at least two hours. This allows the flour to thoroughly absorb the water.
- Roll out the bottom pie crust and place it in the pie pan.
- Prebake the bottom crust, if called for in the pie recipe.
- Prepare the pie filling and add it on top of the bottom crust.
- Roll out the top crust and place it on top of the pie filling.
- Bake the pie.
- Let the pie cool before cutting.
B. Prepare the Crust
C. Baking the Pie
What’s the Difference Between Tender and Flaky Pie Crusts, And Why Does It Matter?
As you’re reading through pie recipes, you may find references to flaky pie crust and tender pie crusts. The difference between the two is that flaky pie crusts have layers – they flake. Tender pie crust don’t.
Flaky pie crusts are created by folding the pie crust in such a way that layers of solid fat and flour are stacked on top of each other. The key to making these stacks is to keep the fat flakes solid until a certain point in the baking process. And the key to keeping the fat solid is to keep the temperature of the butter above the melting point. Since different fats have different melting points, the selection of the fat and the way in which you handle it becomes very important. You also have to cut the fat into the flour in a very particular way and roll the crust out in a very particular way.
A tender pie crust does not have flakes. In a tender pie crust the fat is thoroughly interspersed with the flours. If you zoomed in on it with a microscope it might look like a bunch of small pebbles (the fat) and all the spaces between the pebbles has been filled with sand (the flour). The fat in a tender crust doesn’t have to say solid, so it’s much more forgiving. Not completely forgiving (funny story there!), but you don’t have to be as vigilant about keeping everything cold.