Approaching the Perfect Pie Crust (from the kitchen of Mary McGhee)
Making the perfect pie crust has been a lifelong quest for me. My mother’s pies had the most perfect, light, tender, flaky crust I’ve ever had. Of course, she had more than sixty years of practice to get it right! I’ve been working for years to come close to the standard she set, or even (do I dare say it?) improve on it.
This recipe is the work-in-progress result of my efforts. It combines my mother’s original recipe with some other experts’ tricks and tips, and my own experiments. The egg and the vinegar were Mom’s secret ingredients. The vodka is an idea from Cooks Illustrated magazine—it lets you use more liquid for an easier-to-handle dough, without promoting the development of gluten (which makes the crust tough), the way more water would. The 2:1 ratio of butter and lard comes from an article in the New York Times, where they reported their results with all sorts of different fats and proportions. The lard gives the crust a flaky texture, and the butter gives it a nice flavor. I can’t remember where I got the idea for the baking stone, but I do know it does a great job of keeping your bottom crust from getting soggy. No matter how juicy the pie filling, even the bottom of your pie will be amazingly crisp.
You may not be as obsessive as I am. A lot of these directions and ingredients may seem a little over-the-top to you. You’ll have to look hard for a store that carries any kind of pastry flour, and the only place I’ve found King Arthur brand is on their website. If you don’t want to hunt down real leaf lard (it’s out there, but it’s hard to find), you can use regular supermarket lard, or Crisco (my mother swore by it!) If you don’t have time to let the dough rest overnight, and then let the rolled-out crust rest another night in the pie plate, then go ahead and speed up the process. And of course, you can bake a perfectly good pie without a baking stone in your oven. Just don’t expect the results to be as good as if you did it the hard way! I’ve tested and compared all these nitpicky instructions to the easier, cheaper alternatives, and I’m convinced they really do make enough difference to be worth it. Try it my way just once and see if you don’t agree!
Makes one double (top and bottom) crust or two single (bottom) crusts.
3 cups sifted pastry flour (I use King Arthur) or all-purpose flour, plus more for sprinkling
1 teaspoons. salt
14 Tablespoons unsalted butter (preferably the higher-fat European-style, like Lurpak or Plugrá), chilled
7 Tablespoons rendered leaf lard, chilled
1 large egg, well-beaten
1/4 cup ice-cold vodka
2 to 3 Tablespoons ice water
1 Tablespoon white vinegar, chilled
1 egg white, slightly beatenBefore you begin, chill your mixing bowl, pastry cutter, and all your ingredients. You want to keep everything cold during the whole mixing process because you don’t want the fats to melt and over-blend with the flour—you want to keep bits of them nice and separate.
Sift together flour and salt. Cut butter and lard into flour (some people swear by a food processor for mixing the fat and flour, but I’ve never had good luck with it—I prefer an old-fashioned pastry cutter) until the biggest lumps of fat are kidney bean-sized. Combine egg, vodka, water, and vinegar (start with 2 tablespoons of water, and add more if the dough is too dry, which is more likely if you’re baking in a dry climate). Pour liquid into flour mixture all at once. Blend with a spoon just until flour is all moistened. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes (overnight is best) before rolling out.
Divide the dough into two balls and roll them out, one at a time, on waxed paper (you will need to sprinkle a fair amount of flour on the waxed paper, the dough, and the rolling pin to keep it from sticking). Try to handle the dough minimally and roll it lightly—too much handling develops gluten and makes the crust tough. If you can see big blobs of fat in the crust as you roll it out, you’re doing it right!
To place the dough in the pie plate, flip the waxed paper over and peel it off carefully when dough is in place. Try not to stretch the dough as you’re putting it in the plate, or it will shrink back as it bakes. Trim about 1/4-inch past the edge of the plate and fold edges lightly under the rim. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before baking (again, several hours or overnight in the freezer is better).
For a single-crust pie
An unbaked bottom crust can be frozen in the pie plate until you need it. Freeze it until firm, then wrap in an extra-large Ziplock bag. It isn’t necessary to thaw it before baking—it can go straight from freezer to oven.
To pre-bake an unfilled bottom crust, prick it with a fork at 1/2-inch intervals before refrigerating. Adjust the oven rack to its lowest position. Place a baking stone in the bottom of the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees F. for at least 30 minutes. Lay a doubled square of aluminum foil on the pastry, just covering the bottom. Weight the foil with pie weights. Bake until crust is firmly set, about 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Remove weights and foil, and if the filling is going to be wet, brush bottom of crust with slightly-beaten egg white. Mask edges of crust with a pie shield or foil. Continue to bake directly on the baking stone until crust is crisp and rich brown in color, about 10 minutes longer.
For a double-crust pieRefrigerate the unrolled portion of the dough for the top crust until you are ready to roll it out.
If the filling is going to be wet, brush the bottom crust with slightly-beaten egg white before chilling, to keep it from getting soggy.
Fill the bottom crust and top with the top crust. Seal edges together with fingers or the times of a fork.
To bake a filled pie (single or double-crust), adjust the oven rack to its lowest position. Place a baking stone in the bottom of the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees F. for at least 30 minutes.
Mask the edges of the pie with a pie shield or foil. Place the pie on the lowest oven rack for 15-20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F. and move it down, directly on the baking stone (this makes gets the bottom crust really crisp). Follow the directions in your pie recipe for total baking time.