Home Made Pie Crust–Made with 100% Whole Wheat Flour?
23 November 2009 by Jean JohnsonLife’s too short for store bought pie crust. Here’s a recipe note from Hippie Kitchen for pie crust the old fashioned way.
Home Made Pie Crust
Use two parts flour to one part fat for your crust. In the pie pictured, I used two cups of unbleached white flour (departing from my usual whole wheat pastry flour) and two or three pinches of salt to two cubes of cold butter pared off in thin bits with a knife. That way the butter is fairly easy to work into the flour by pressing the bits flat with your fingers and not putting too fine a point on things (see the details below). Then little splashes of ice water, using your hands to help the dough come together gently.
The idea with pie crust is to let the dough press itself together without stirring per se. Your hands are more guides than they are mixers. So just keep sprinkling water around on the parts that are still dry until the dough forms into a nice soft mound.
For this much dough you’ll have enough for a bottom shell and a small sugar cinnamon tart or something fun like that for the kitchen helpers. If you want to make a two crust pie, use 3 cups of flour and 3 cubes of butter. Then form the dough into 2 soft balls.
To roll your crust out, flour a board and a rolling pin–or even a wine bottle if a pin’s not around. Turn the dough fairly often and keep dusting with flour so things don’t stick.
I think you’ll be surprised at how easy pie crust is. The main trick is getting a dough that holds together by using just enough water to pat things together. That way you avoid trying to work with a dough that cracks because it’s too dry–as well as a dough that simply has more water than it needs.
Bake your pie in a hot, 425 degree oven for ten minutes to jump start the bottom crust. Then back the heat off a good hundred degrees for a slow cook on the filling. Check your pie now and again, and turn it, since if your oven’s like mine it’s hotter at the back. Pies are done when the tip of your sharp knife signals soft fruit within or a custard-type filling that lets the knife slip out clean.
Details
When I worked at My Mom’s Pie shop way back, I’d make pies during my off hours and take wedges into the owner, Jean McLaughlin. Her main tip was to not get up tight about working the fat into the flour perfectly. And I did find that my crusts got flakier when I didn’t worry about the little pea-sized bits and left rather big shards of butter here and there. I got two thumbs up from Jean too, who wondered if I was planning on opening my own shop.
I went to grad school instead, but I kept up with the pies and learned: to flatten the rim of the crimped crust so it doesn’t burn., bake in cast iron skillets that turn out such great bottom crusts, and that 100 percent whole wheat pastry flour makes a darn flaky crust–as these three lovely pies made last summer during raspberry and chard season show.
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4 Responses to “Home Made Pie Crust–Made with 100% Whole Wheat Flour?”
Natalia and I happened on one another at Midland Public Library last year when I did a recipe from my first book. She was one of three or four who showed up for the event–sigh, the pain of being an unknown with a fat and sassy message–but Natalia was a pal. She bought a book, helped me lug stuff out to the car at the end, joined the blog, and stayed in touch. Here’s the message I found waiting on Thanksgiving morning. I’m answering back pronto in case she’s thinking of trying a pie today.
Hi Jean,
What an incredibly fabulous edition of your mailing to us!
Thank you very much!
You are always so very generous with all that you send.
I do have a couple of questions, if you can oblige, please:
1. Idiot question #1
What is a cube of butter for the pie dough? Do you mean
what I would call a stick or do you mean that you cut it off to
be as long as it is square?
2. I have an old cast iron pan that I used to love and use but hesitate to use it now because we post-menopausal women are usually told to go out of our way to avoid extra iron. What say
you for us older types and iron pans? other than “moderation”?
Thinking of you with much fondness and wishing you and your family and friends a wonderful Thanksgiving Day and every day.
Love,
Natalia
By Jean Johnson on Nov 26, 2009
Hey Natalia—always lovely to hear from you–although no questions too out of the loop to ask–and I know that you as a former teacher would be the first to say that–chuckle
On Thanksgiving, I don’t have any family–can you believe it? I’m it. The sole survivor. But a couple houses of friends have said cruise over, so I’ll be out and about doing the holiday gig.
On your pie crust questionnes:
1—yes: in my lingo, cube = stick
2—dunno about the latest science on women of a certain age & their iron needs & cast iron pans—but little details like that never stopped me from holding forth:
First as Michael Pollan points out (In Defense of Food), health/food claims come and go, often on the basis of rather thin science–as well as science sponsored by industry.
Second, and here’s my experience: I have a whole family of cast iron that makes my kitchen life easy and very very enjoyable—
a wok for flash cooking grand piles of kale,
a griddle for making cheese crisps,
a small small skillet for frying red chile,
and standard skillets for pies, rolls, focaccias (called Tangled Up Focaccia in Hippie Kitchen after Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue), pizzas, and roasting winter root vegetables.
It all started in grad school with a single griddle, but over time as I realized how easy the rinse and swipe clean-up is with cast iron, I happily courted the rest of the crowd—–and have even given over the big back burner spot to the cast iron wok where she sits ready and waiting day after day (and I don’t have to heft and hoist).
I may take a flying leap off into the big beyond earlier than later because of my cast iron dependency (and wouldn’t join Cast Iron Anonymous even if a group started up) but the reward will have been years of pleasure, ease, delicious eating.
Carve that on my gravestone—& be sure not to leave the Dylan part out! All best, J
By Jean Johnson on Nov 26, 2009
You’re a rockstar. Thank you so much for the details on cooking a pie in cast iron. Everyone I know thinks I’m crazy for using cast iron, but no other materials can hold up against my dreadful cooking habits (like forgetting that I did, in fact, turn the burner on 20 min ago). Most also feel that I’m crazy for measuring by sight and cooking by instinct. I love your title, btw. Definitely going to visit again. Thx
By Sam on Mar 28, 2010
Sam–thx for cruising through–glad to be finding my larger cast iron community. I know sometimes people will get confused when I bring a pie in a skillet. “Did you do it stove top” etc…Sigh
Anyhow, glad you get it. Best, J
By Jean Johnson on Mar 29, 2010