How I Learned to Make the Best Pie Crust I’ve Ever Tasted

For someone who loves food and cooking and culinary experiments as much as I do, I’m surprisingly thin. Since many in my family saw the line in the sand between pleasantly plump and obese and plowed right through it into joyfully rotund, I can’t blame this on genetics. Instead, I blame it on my absence of a sweet tooth – given the choice between a second portion of meat or a dessert, I will almost always choose more meat. I don’t particularly like bread, fruit, potatoes, rice, cakes, candies, or any starchy or sugary foods. I’ll eat them when they compliment the meats and vegetables, but I’m not someone who’d ever be likely to over-indulge in these items. The diets that are most akin to the way I eat naturally is a later-stage Atkins or South Beach style, so apparently these are diets that work well for me.

However, I love to make jellies, desserts, pies, all things gross and sugary and not at all appealing to me. Pies in particular are my favorite, since they are simple to do decently, but require true skill to do well. The component of the pie that has long plagued me is the crust – I used to quake with fear at the thought of making my own crust from scratch – it would always turn out tough, rubbery, and then so light it would float to the surface of my pecan or pumpkin pie… always an embarrassing outcome for someone who considers herself to be culinarily inclined. However, with a little research I finally made the perfect pie crust – light, flaky, savory, melt-in-your-mouth excellent. And it’s SO easy! While I am hesitant to share the secrets of the perfect crust (I don’t want everyone to be able to make pie crust as good as mine, when I consider it to be such a major life accomplishment), for the sake of advancing the cause of excellent pies, I will do so.

The Recipe
This is adapted from Alton Brown’s recipe only slightly. Follow his recipe exactly if you don’t like savory crusts, and add some sugar if you like sweet crusts, but beware – every modification has its challenges and sugar will promote early browning of your crust!!

• 1 c flour
• 6 tbsp butter, chopped and frozen
• 2 tbsp frozen bacon grease
• 1 tsp salt

The Mixing Technique
Work COLD! Mix the flour and salt in a heavy glass or ceramic bowl and stick it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. Pull it out, and mix in half the butter with your finger tips, squeezing it into the flour until it has a meal-like consistency, no large clumps. Work quickly and stir frequently so the butter does not melt. Put the bowl back in the freezer while you wash your fingers and dry them off. Maybe pour yourself a cold drink of ice water; we’re just making sure the bowl stays cold here. Repeat with the process with the remaining half the butter, re-freeze the bowl, and repeat with the bacon grease. Throw your rolling pin in the freezer at some point, two pie plates in the fridge, and maybe lay some frozen foods out on the counter you will be rolling your crust onto. Flakiness happens when pockets of solid fat melt leaving flakes of pastry – any melting that occurs reduces your flakiness! We use part butter, part lard / bacon grease, because butter gives awesome flavor and works right if you do it right, and the higher melting solid animal fats provide some insurance in case you screw up and melt the butter. Okay, the mixture has probably gotten cold enough, so pull it out and sprinkle a little bit of that glass of ice water you made earlier into the dough, stirring just enough to see if its combining into a dough yet. DO NOT KNEAD! Kneading, and even over-stirring, promote gluten formation, which is what happens when you use force on a water and flour mixture. This is great for bread, when you want a tougher, meatier texture, but terrible for pie crust! When you’ve got your dough, proceed to….

The Rolling and Plating Technique
I am totally stealing this from Alton Brown, sorry Alton, but your method has been tested against all others and has been found to be superior. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap down on your cold countertop. Put the ball of dough on top, and flatten with your hand into a disk. Work fast so the dough stays cold. Top it with another sheet of plastic wrap, and roll out until it’s a couple inches larger on all sides than your pie plate. Sit one pie plate on top of the plastic wrap on top of the dough, facing “up” so you can still put stuff in the pie plate. You won’t, but that’s okay. Flip the crust and saran wrap and plate upside down, so that the crust is laying nicely in a pie shape on the bottom of the plate. Remove the easy-to-get-at layer of saran wrap, and invert the other pie plate onto this assembly. Flip the whole shebang one more time, remove the “inside” pie plate, and the last layer of saran wrap. Push the pie crust into the corners of the plate, repair any rips or damages, and stash the whole thing in the fridge.

Make Your Pie the Normal Way
Maybe you were thinking ahead and assembling your pie filling during the times the crust was cooling back down in the freezer. Maybe you weren’t and now have to make a filling. I’m only addressing the bottom crust here, because so far I’ve only used this recipe for crumb-topped sweet pies and wonderfully savory egg pies. Maybe you’re fancy and like to call egg pies quiche, but I won’t hold that against you! My favorite filling for this crust is a cheddar, onion, and spinach filling. I sauté 1 onion in butter, then add in a pound of frozen spinach, thawed and drained, cooking until warmed through. I stir in one cup of grated cheddar, then spoon this mixture into the crust and cover quickly with 4 eggs beaten with 1 c milk, and put the whole thing into a 350 F oven for 15 minutes. Then I pull it out and top with half a cup more cheddar, and continue baking for 30-40 minutes. While I wouldn’t call this a quiche, it is definitely the best breakfast egg pie I’ve ever eaten. I swear I could eat this every morning and never complain!

Comments or suggestions? Please share with your comments!