Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Basic Pie Crust

Kari, I hope I'm not too late. Here's the most basic pie recipe. The key is 1) keep all the ingredents cold. Use ice water, if at all possible use shortning, or unsalted butter, but if you don't have that then you can use margarine, but have it be COLD!!! 2) Minimal handling, just mix in the water till it's just mixed in, bring it all together (if its really dry & won't hold togetherthen add the 4th tsp of water), put it on the floured surface. I prefer to do it on some saran wrap so that I can lift it into a pie plate easier.

1 1/4 c flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 c shortning, or unsalted butter
3 or 4 tbsp ice water

cut the shortning into the flour & salt, use your fingers till it looks like bread crumbs. Use a fork to mix in water. Mix till it's like larger chunks of dough. Bring it together, chill in the fridge for 20 min. Flatten on floured surface & roll out with rolling pin. (Start at the center & roll out). Poke holes with a fork in the bottom & sides to prevent cracking.
If you want a "pre-prepared" crust bake at 180c for 10-12 min or until golden. You can check out the Irish creme pie post for a cookie crumb crust.

Hope it works out good.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you soooooooo much Al!
I'll use it sometime when I have time...
We used your cheesecake recipie with a shortbread crust and it was very popular.

I love these recipes you put up... I 've printed most of them and have them labeled "Al’s-cookbook-of-science” :P

Babylove said...

So sweet. Glad you like them. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Finally! hee! XXX

Anonymous said...

cool! May I post this on the Olivechefs blog?

Tearz Sakai said...

can u freeze the dough and save it 4 another day?

Babylove said...

Tearz, if you roll it out & put it in your pie pan/poke holes in it/flute or decorate the edges how you want it, then yes it can keep for a pretty good while in the freezer (I'd imagine up to a month??) I usually do that when I'm prepping for C'mas or something. Good Luck, I love pie crusts but it's been a long journey. :)

Tearz Sakai said...

yeah, I've been trying to figure out the pie dough business for a while. So far I'm not satisfied yet :( I guess it's through trial and error :) but thank you. I love ur blog. I look it up everyday 4 my cooking.

Tearz Sakai said...

I made it in the wee hours of the night since that's the only ME time I hav and it looks goooood : ) I guess we'll see how it tastes in the morning. Tx's again Ali.