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dough before rolling it out. Unchilled dough is sticky and requires more flour when you roll it and
more flour means a tougher crust. The less time you work the dough, the cooler it remains, so fast
work is mandatory for a flaky crust.
Any dough, especially pie dough, needs to rest after mixing. The resting period allows any
gluten that may have developed to relax, which makes it easier to work the dough in subsequent
steps. For the very best crust, let the dough relax again in the refrigerator after rolling it out and
fitting it into the pie plate. This step also helps to minimize shrinkage. Pie pastry should be as cold
as possible when you put it in the oven, in fact it is best never to let pie crust warm up. The only
time you let it warm up slightly is just before rolling. At normal room temperature chilled dough
warms up enough in 10 to 20 minutes to make working it easy. The ideal rolling temperature is
5
0°F (10°C)—if you are a purist, you may want to check your dough with a thermometer.
An optional pie dough ingredient that housewives in the distant past never forgot, (even if
they didn't know what it was for) is a little vinegar. Now we know why they used it. Making the
dough slightly acid helps the gluten relax, which in turn makes working the dough easier. Acid also
breaks up any of the long gluten sheets that may form. Vinegar, lemon juice or cream of tartar all do
the same thing. If you use the first two, add them to the chilled water. If you use cream of tartar (¼
teaspoon for a single crust), sift it with the flour. For a single-crust pie made with 1¼ cups of flour,
about half a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice is enough to slightly acidify the dough.
As steam develops in the dough during baking, the steam puffs up the flaky layers slightly,
that is very desirable as it gives some airiness to the crust. If your oven temperature is too low, the
heat doesn't generate enough steam, and you may get a perfectly nice flaky but unpleasantly dense,
doughy crust.
How to make a pie dough
There are two basic methods of making a pie dough—with hand or in a machine. In my
kitchen tests I compared the results made with hand, in a food processor and with a food mixer. The
food processor did a respectable job but the food mixer did not. Even with the food processor, you
need to finish mixing by hand or you are likely to end up with an unfortunate overworked dough.
To make the dough with the processor, follow your manual's instructions only until the ingredients
begin to coalesce. Then dump the partly-formed dough on a pastry board and complete the last steps
by hand.
Whether by machine or hand, the idea is to cut the hard, solid fat into the flour so it
remains in discernible pieces. By hand you can do this with two knives working them parallel but in
the opposite direction, or a pastry blender that meant for this purpose. Or simply quickly rub the fat
into the flour with cold fingers.
A food mixer doesn't mix the dough very well, leaving fairly large chunks of unworked fat
in the dough. Longer mixing eventually gives a more homogenous mass but at the cost of
overworking and warming the dough that bakes into dense, tough crust.
While we are on mixing, let's distinguish the two types of American pie crusts—the flaky
type in which you mix solid fat into the flour until still fairly coarse, around pea size, and the mealy
crust in which you mix the fat thoroughly into the flour until very fine. Southerners prefer mealy
crust while the rest of the pie-lovers like the flaky type. For mealy crusts you can use food
processors to form the crust a little longer—it is still good to finish the last few second by hand.
Some cooks like to use a pastry cloth for rolling out pie dough. There is even a tube-shaped
pastry cloth that fits over the rolling pin. A pastry cloth minimizes sticking and the need for
additional flour. For experienced bakers it is just an additional gadget to store and clean. Quick
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