How To Make The Best Pie Crust with Erin McDowell | Dear Test Kitchen

I haven't been a pastry chef but we are with a move from my magical pastry shop Wanda yes I love it tonight I feel like it's happening welcome to the 52 Test Kitchen food my name is Josh Cohen and the director of the Test Kitchen here today We are talking. pie

crust

and we have my favorite pie

crust

expert, Aaron McDowell, how to

make

the table the way it's done, yeah, the reason you're here today, the Food 52 community is always pepp

erin

g us with different questions about pie and pie crust, so we're I'll bring you to give them a wide range of knowledge and wisdom.

Yes, it's my favorite topic to talk about and I have a lot to say. Well, my first favorite thing is just jumping. Yes, from there to start with what is mixed. It's okay, because you can achieve a lot of success right there in the bowl, we're going to talk about all my problem-solving tips along the way and you won't fail. I'm here, I've got you okay. together we

make

amazing pie crust, I promise, so everything we have in this bowl is my recipe for all but one pie crust that's at 350; If someone is struggling with cake batter, you don't have to keep all the butter, but I just like the taste, if you know how to handle butter, you'll get the same results using all butter as you would with a shortening mixture.

I think the taste first. I agree, so I like to make my pie dough by hand. and that's my first question for you, are your hands warm? Okay, then, like the butter is already happening to you a little bit. My hands are cold. I guess my hands are hot, but the good news is that if you don't want to do this step by hand, you can use the food processor for this first part and that will minimize the amount of contact you will have with it, but I really like doing it. by hand because I think da you're the

best

, the old one in general, yes, I have a question for you, do it, let's say the butter starts to melt a little, how does it affect the cake.

Yes, basically we want the cake and all the ingredients cold at every stage and the reason is because we want it to be that way, it leads to that flakiness which is the desired end result, so the way you get the flakiness is by humidity in butter, the water content when it reaches the food. from the oven that moisture evaporates and creates steam and that pushes the dough up and that's what makes the dough flaky so it's all about holding it. If the butter melts, you'll end up with something that's a little crumbly or more like cookie dough. you almost get flatter exactly and that's not a bad thing, but you know, if we're talking about that really flaky, delicious pie crust, which is what we're going to do today, yeah, we want to do a couple of things and one is keep everything very cold, you can help it in different ways, make sure everything is cold in the refrigerator before you even start using it, you can even chill the flour and the bowl you are preparing it in before you start, so if you are someone If your hands are hot and you want to skip the food processor, you can do all of those things, but you can also do it at any time, if you feel like it's melting, just put it in the refrigerator, don't you know, that's not good advice because , like if I produce it in the refrigerator between minutes and everything is fine, so the first thing we will do is throw all the cubes so that they are completely covered in flour before that and that will help us.

With the process, on the one hand, there is now a small layer of starch that will prevent it from melting. Is it like a standard scientific butter cube or do you use larger than average cubes? I always start with a cube of about half an inch and there is no need to make it smaller than that. People are often surprised when we finish mixing the snow. People are sometimes very surprised at how little I've mixed in the butter, so you definitely don't want to make them much smaller than this. They might be a little bit bigger than this, it's just going to mean more time mixing, so what we're going to do is we're just going to take the butter cubes and we're going to crush them between our fingers, yeah, and every time you crush a piece that you want to throw away, make sure to that it's still covered in flour, it's just going to help it from melting again and it's also going to combine them together, which is what we're going to do and basically what we're going to do is we're just going to keep doing this and then until we get to the right amount and what?

How do you know what the correct amount is? How do you know for a flaky pie crust which is what I normally use for fruit pies? We would like to leave it. the butter is the size of walnut halves, so this makes a little more than yours, no, no, that's good, that's about right for a floury cross, okay, so I think you're perfect and it will be a excellent pie crust for your pumpkin. pie or a nut, any kind of custard pie, okay, now we're going to make a well in the center like a hole and start adding ice water.

Now you can be very precise with this and use a tablespoon measurement to kind of help you keep track of how much you're adding, but really this part is all about hydration and each brand of flour will hydrate differently. different, so if you learn to do it by eye, you won't have to be so mentally focused. I like things like this, where you have a totally accurate sensory memory and you can get used to it, so I'll start by adding just a few tablespoons, like two or three tablespoons, into the well. and then what I do at first is I start by using this throwing motion, like throwing the flour this way instead of mixing it, this just helps us build up less gluten while still combining the ingredients and I know gluten can be a dirty word , but in a way it's in pie dough because the more gluten that forms, the harder the dough will be and that will be that, so let's say if you have your child helping you, okay and they're like kneading the dough kneading the dough you're going to get a very hard dough, let's put it this way when I make pie dough with my niece, yes I'm doing this part, they mash the butter, I add the water, so I'll add another tablespoon of fish. to my dough and I'll keep doing this until it starts to come together and as it gets closer I like to fold it over itself, it's kind of a kneading motion but not as intense as kneading bread.

I'm just being nice about it at the moment, this is what always happens to me, is that a lot of my dough has come together and then this part is kind of a powder, okay, so what I do is I literally take that part that is all together. I set it aside and just add a little bit of water to this part and sometimes at this stage when you just need a little bit more water it can be quite difficult just a little bit so what I do is I dip my hands in in the water and we just pour water on it and that way I don't add too much at once and when it's too dry it looks like powder and it doesn't hold together as well, but it can really be a matter of like a couple drops of water to make it fit well so you can see that it's holding together, but you can even see that there are visible cracks where it still looks a little lumpy, yes, you got it, you're perfect, so if it's a It notices a little too dry because these cracks They are more visible and there are actually bits of powder that have not been properly hydrated and when it is too wet it will be very sticky to the touch, which can also happen if the butter melts too much. while you're working, so if you're ever unsure, just pop it in the refrigerator for a little bit before you continue and if so, if it's too wet, basically what you can do is refrigerate it, let it cool a little bit and then roll it out using a lot more flour than you normally would and it will absorb that flour normally, that's not what you want to do if your dough is fine, if your dough is too wet you can just give it a little. extra flour at that rolling stage to help it get back to where it feels really good and now we're going to get to the fun part which is actually rolling it out so you're just going to shape it into a disk and we'll do that. cool this down for sure and then we can wash our hands and take out the dough that we already made.

Greetings, okay, so we refrigerate our dough for at least thirty minutes. Okay, I like to chill it a little longer, but thirty minutes is usually enough to let the gluten relax and the butter is firm enough to roll, so we're going to flour our surface and what I like to do is be quite generous with the flour at first and then ideally not having to add much more as I continue to roll it. It's important to remember that all the flour you're incorporating is being incorporated into the dough and the dough can dry out at this point, yes it definitely can, so you know, err on the side, like I said, I know something about you, you know A small handful for me is enough to spread out all the dough and do this whole process so I like to start by pushing from the center up and down and then I turn it and part of the reason I turn it while they work is just to make sure it doesn't stick to the surface, you can do that too, so if so, I felt a little bit of stickiness, so I can make sure that part gets a little bit more flour like you once felt.

Everything yes definitely yes you can turn it over and one thing to remember is that this side is the side that was down so it has more flour than the other side so you can even at this stage if I'm not sure. If that's too much, I can remove it. You can see in my dough here, you can see bits of butter, this is more like a flaky dough and then what you have is the floury dough and you just see less visible butter, it's there. It's just not that tough, tough, I know, it feels like I know, it's not.

I've used that word for years and I know it's not the

best

thing. If someone is very enthusiastic, is it possible to roll? Yes, it is definitely not and this. where I am now is about what you're looking for, it's about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. I like to err on the side of being a little thicker than 1/8 just because that's what it is. makes it easier to handle but about 1/8 inch is what most recipes will say and that's pretty accurate if you roll the dough too thin what I would recommend doing is just fold it into quarters and put it back into the refrigerator, let it sit a little longer and then you can reuse it and the folding action will give it more layers, it's like making puff pastry, so that's something you can do to save it if you roll it too thin and it should be, you know, it's what thick enough that I can lift it like that, but if it's thin enough that when I lift it it breaks, that's generally too good an indicator, so when I get it. about the right width, usually what I do is flip the cake pan over and if it's at least an inch wider all the way around I would roll yours up a little more just to make sure you have enough on that side . and you'll see why because I have something that I like to do with that other side, so now what I do is I roll it on the rolling pin and at this point, in fact, if you see that there is too much flour, you can do that. you kind of brush it as you roll it, it's one of my favorite tricks for moving cake batter, yeah, me too, it just feels and also, you know, it feels like a real trick and then we just roll it out like that. satisfying and then I just pick it up from the hedges to push it into the cake tin and can I ruin it here?

If this is not so, we can just move it, so yeah, just pick it up perfect like this. and then yeah, we can just press it, that's a great example of that's the kind of thing that will always happen if it's not perfectly round and it doesn't need to be perfectly round. I'm going to trim right now, so don't be scared if yours ends up more square. Well, now we're going to use one of my favorite tools, which is scissors, you can use a knife and while you're at it, you know. As a chef, you may be more comfortable with a knife, but I think this is easier for a lot of people at home because you can trim off the excess and keep an eye on where you're cutting, so I basically trim it like this. that there's only about a half inch of access all the way around, so once you get about a half inch of excess all the way around again, you can see that mine isn't perfect, so we're just folding it down so that is flush with the edge. but now we have that excess built in and I like to press it down really hard because I make sure the dough doesn't stay here because if you fold it down and you have a lot of flour it might not stick. to the dough and you know it might come out in the oven because our dough is very flaky, so mine looks a little different than yours, it looks great, this is years and years of making pies, you know, and you I will show it.

Now you know how to even out that crust because, by nature, different parts of it are going to be a little bit thicker, a little bit whatever, and that's what you have here, so what I would do now is go with the flow and go with my fingers and level it out like that and that will help at any point where it's too thick, any point where there's an indentation likeThis one, you can even push it up, yeah, okay, so it's time to cool it down again because I usually had a decent amount of it by then, so the first fold is a classic finger crimp and for that are you left handed or right now so it will be the same but you will use your dominant hand to make a V shape with your thumb and index finger, you did it like this the cake is ready and then you will use the index finger of your non-dominant hand to pressing towards it and down, so you're trying to move your fingers towards each other, but you're also pressing down and that's what's sticking it to the cake pan.

You are doing it very well. I ruined it. Alright. I'll come back and fix them. In fact, I always like to come back to the end and sometimes I feel like a point for you. sometimes they end up a little more rounded and sometimes half ends up half down the middle and I go back and fix them up a little bit, yeah, you're doing great, you know? The only other thing is that you do it even though If you want to press down and press in, you don't want to press so hard that you break the crust, that's really the only thing that would be too aggressive at this stage, so now I'll show you an even easier curling where all you need is a fork, you can just dip it a little bit in flour and just press down around the hive, but I like to do this, I think it's a little more elegant and it's just as easy so pretty much press the fork at an angle like this and press down and then make the fork go at the other angle in the other direction and the only thing you have to be careful with like when you use your fingers, is that you don't want to tear or tear the dough, the main reason you want to avoid this is that you don't want to risk the filling leaking through the actual dough, which will cause your pie to burn, it will cause It will stick to the mold and make it difficult to get a slice.

So you want to use a firm but gentle hand, you just notice this pattern, it's very when it's finished. I actually enjoy doing this sometimes, but you can mix up the curl styles. Could you make two forks like this and then? a couple of thumbprints and then you could even do a thumbprint and press the fork in between the Crim, yeah, okay, so for a double crust pie, the whole style of how to get to the crim is a little bit different, so I wanted to show you that too, since you have to cross, we have our fill under there, the first ridge is what we did, yes, but it's still hanging, it's hanging folded underneath, no, not yet, it's the same amount of excess still half an inch of excess all the way around, we placed our filling and then rolled out the top crust of the pin the same way you would.

The idea here is to press the top crust and bottom crust together a little bit to pretty firmly on all sides. I'm just going to put the top crust and the bottom crust together. It's like a giant ravioli. Speak my language and you get pretty firm like you would with pasta to make sure they're nice and firm. I really like to combine them, yeah, and then I'll trim the excess, okay, to about half an inch again, okay, now I'll do the same thing we did before and I'll just fold this under around the pie and that way, the top crust is tucked under the bottom crust yeah so there's really no risk of them falling apart in the oven so just tuck it under all the way and then we're going to fold and for this one I'm going to do one of my favorite styles called curling written.

This is easy, it's the exact same technique, but with two pie crusts exactly together, okay, now we're going to do the rope curl, which is pretty easy. do it with your two index fingers like this and just take the dough at an angle, just place your finger at the base of where the last one ends and squeeze between your fingers like this, to me it feels more complicated. than that and it's funny because just thank you, I like it, I didn't feel nervous until I tried it, I think it might be easier than you think, so you were doing this kind of way, yeah, can you do it again?, yes that's fine.

Okay, what happens if I tighten it too much? Yes that is good. Yeah, we can always go back and even it after we've done everything because sometimes once you start you get the rhythm, man, okay, I feel like it's easy. right and it's also like you're going to be I was nervous for no reason okay okay this is cute it's cute right so we've made three different crimp styles and they're all beautiful and now they're basically ready to bake the double crust pie, We'd just need to finish it up a bit. Maybe I would put some turbinado or Demerara sugar or something on top with a double crust.

Is it always necessary to cut slats? Or sometimes you can bake it without air holes? Oh, it's much better to cut the slats or vents like that because they will let out all the steam and especially the steam from the fruit, yes, as the fruit cooks, it will let out a lot of steam and it just produces less, makes the top crust a little crispier if you let the steam the only tip for cutting the vents and is to do it after you have applied any finishes like beaten egg or sugar because those finishes can actually close the vents .

These single crust pies would be ready to fill and bake as is or you could bake them or blind bake them if someone doesn't have any experience in what partial baking is or that means partially baking. means partial baking and that's something you might want to do with a pie crust or a pie filling that's moister, so like a custard filling like pumpkin, have you ever had a soggy bottom? your pumpkin pie, it's just because the amount of time it takes to bake the pumpkin cream is not as long as it takes to bake the entire pie crust, so before adding the wet filling, you should do something just with the crude price.

Yes, you would document it all with a fork like this only to make it so flaky that you'll want to pierce it to make sure it doesn't have too many air pockets. I even dock the sides like this, remember that these holes will fill up when baking so I'm not too worried about the filling leaking through them later, then lay out a piece of parchment paper and fill it with cake shapes. I like to tell people to fill it to this brim because that's the only way it really weighs if you just fill it. If you get this far then this whole part is unweighted and that's when you can have problems with the crust leaning towards you or even this part will swell and then the rest will be flat and it will look very strange to you so you fill it with high waves .

Yes, it usually takes three pounds of dried beans to make, plus or minus two and a half to fill it completely, but it really makes a difference and is worth it. If you're going to do the baking part, then for the partial bake, bake it for about 12 to 15 minutes until it's just starting to brown, then you would take out the cake weights that they get for a couple more minutes and bake like I do. I'll show you the finished cakes. I bake both pies from a single crust and it makes a big difference in how the bottom crust browns.

Is incredible. I really recommend it. I'm going to try some cake. Yes please. Now before we begin, there are two people from the office who will be coming. Well, some cake with us. Hey, you're ready, so tell the world who you are. Thank you for coming to eat cake with us. Oh, I love your place so much. Before we eat, I want to show you my favorite pie party trick, which is really great to present to your family and friends on Thanksgiving. If they choose to bake the cake, people don't always know, but they do bake their cake. correctly, it should come out of the cake pan, it won't stick to the tall plate at all, so we'll try it with this one and see that it's generally a good indicator, you can turn it a few times, check this out. one is going to come out so I'm going to grab it underneath and then you can cut it right in the right place it's amazing okay so for our taste

test

we're going to focus on the crust today that I can cut.

Right here, yeah, yeah, well, this is a pumpkin pie that can't be deciphered because it doesn't have an X, so I would eat it right now. Do you want to pass me one of those plates? Yeah, what do you think of pottery versus black pottery? it's my favorite because it conducts heat, the best glass is my second favorite simply because you can look at it and see if it's brown enough, yeah, and then my Emin metal, they really all work well, yeah, it's just a matter of understanding what you might need. What to do to modify it and so you may want to with metal pans as they don't conduct heat as well as they could, you may want to carve it.

This is what is achieved. I know I love that sound. Surprised again, this is still Miele, your crust, but it's still flaky, which is why I hesitate to use those words too many times, but my other favorite part is that your fork can go through it because I don't want the pie crust to be hard. on Thanksgiving comments on them so this circle microphone says one of my favorite things is we do this technique where it folds down on the edge and actually makes it crumble here so you can see it right here and you can see it in your slices - well you've combined like two crusts exactly so not only is the dough already flaky and when you fold it down you're almost making more layers and you can see that in the soup so this is slow , it's like a single crust and then this is like a bottom and top combined to create that extra.

You would have to be careful, the thicker the crust on the edge, the easier it is to fix, but it also takes longer, yes, so I always give the advice to people. that you really shouldn't be afraid to take your cake too far, except maybe things like that that crack, so you know that flakiness, it looks clean like me, did you do an egg wash and a brown shirt? Yes, egg wash and I like turbinado sugar or Demerara this is the cider caramel apple pie and what do you think of the difference? No, no, I'm not going to get rid of them.

Oh, I was cleaning up the crumbs from the cake when she grabbed, open your mouth, I'll sprinkle it. They are beautiful. I know get rid of them, but what do you guys think? Pie crusts are actually very similar. The only real difference is that's what I think people don't want their custard pie crust to be less of. flaky pastry, but just with that little addition, oh yeah, look at that modest look, just with that little addition of mixing in the butter a little bit more, it makes it a little bit sturdier and easier to work with and you'll even see it.

It's harder to look at the bottom crust of a juicy pie like this, but as you can see, the good thing is that it's golden brown, but we still have a nice thin layer because if it's too thick it's going to be hard to get your horse on top of the flaky crust, right? Do you think you can taste the butter more or is it that in my name I do it? You kind of felt that because there are bigger patches when it goes, that was my first impression between the two presses that this is like you're a little bit more toasty and this is buttery, yeah, and the ratio is exactly the same, like this which is just a matter of manipulation and I like it, I like having a solid base recipe, yes, that you know how to handle and you can do a couple of different things yes, thank you all so much for coming and trying the stack you liked the difference yeah, I loved it I'm going to make this one and this one and then you're going to take it with you why can I can Accept that oh and I won so I guess what I'm going to take away is that the exact same ingredients can produce two pie crusts. slightly different, entirely depending on how finely you work the butter and how you get in there with your hands.

It kind of allows you to feel those differences and know what you're working with and then it comes down to muscle memory, the more cakes you bake the better you'll get at it and even if you think a curl is really hard. Josh is proof that they are all, yeah, are you doing it? If I can do it, anyone can do it. If we had a pie crust, cheers, we had it with our raw dough. Greetings, thanks for tuning in mm-hmm, I did all this myself. Already done