Pie!

Happy Pi Day! I went to a pie workshop two days ago and made wonderful blueberry-raspberry pie with lattice!

The pie turned out great, so now I don’t have to always go to Stop & Shop to get my pies!

There are some key factors of making a good pie dough. First, it’s the flour.

There are SOO many different types of flours – cake, bread, whole-wheat, pastry, and an assortment of nut flours. But here, we used all-purpose. Different flours have different levels of gluten and protein. For example, cake flour has less protein and gluten, making your cakes turn out soft and moist, while bread flour has more gluten, resulting in a tougher, chewier texture perfect for baguettes! All-purpose is right in the middle. So it’s perfect for pies! And you can either have un-bleached or bleached, but the only difference is that the bleached flour is whiter. I recommend King Arthur’s All-Purpose Flour.

Then, the fat.

There’s butter, lard, and shortening.

Butter has the most water, and is the hardest to work with. (You can easily overwork)

Shortening has a lot of moisture, but not a lot of water. There’s no flavor, but it’s easier to work with than butter.

Lard is the easiest one to work with, except, since it’s pig fat, it comes with a piggy sort of flavor. It makes a beautiful dough, but really, it’s better to have a dough that tastes better than it looks.

We used butter, in this instance.

Blind baking:

Blind baking is only used if you have a liquid-y dough, such as our cooked berry filling, or custard filling, or even pudding-like fillings.

You prick the prepared dough all over with a fork, and then put a sheet of parchment over it, and then pour in pie weights (these could be beans, expensive ones from Costco, or just some little stones). Bake the pie crust for 10 minutes in an 400°F oven.

Then you remove the pie weights and parchment, and bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until just nicely golden brown. You’ll smell it!

When you’re working your pie, everything needs to be cold, even your hands.

Simple ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt (a pinch!)
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (cubed and cold!)
• 3 – 4 tablespoons of water (or until a dough forms)

It’s best to pour the mixed flour and salt on a countertop, since you have the area in which you can fully maximize your kneading skills (but not too much!). Add the cubed butter in and pinch them until they’re pea-sized, and the mixture is slightly yellowed. Form a well in the middle of the mixture. Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until a dough is formed! Flatten the dough into a disk a refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. The dough can be refrigerated for up to 2 days, and can be frozen for about 3 – 4 weeks!

That’s all for today! For the fillings, there are so many variations, and the recipe I got was only a little fraction of that. Pie, for now!

(And eat some pi(e) on pi day!)