Buttery Flaky Pie Dough
The main purpose of a pie's dough is to be neutral so your filling may take center stage. In other words, it's a vehicle to safely transport and deliver your chocolate ganache, salted caramel, pecans, fruits, or whatever fillings you've chosen, from the plate to your mouth. However, this vehicle is fancy because it has butter, and butter upgrades everything. I like to keep my dough simple, straight forward, and delectable at the same time. This recipe yields a flaky delicate crust that melts in your mouth harmoniously with the rest of the flavors of your pie or galette.
Washington DC. Fall 2017
It was thanksgiving day, and I was at Boston Logan Airport waiting for my flight to DC. I was sitting on a stool at an airport phone charging station, texting a guy I had gone on a couple of dates with– which would soon become our beloved 👨🏼, and we were talking about a restaurant in Cambridge that we wanted to try for brunch.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for waiting. We would like to inform you that your flight to Washington DC has been delayed four hours due to an unexpected issue with the aircraft."
Four. Hours.
I was meeting my cousin at the airport, who would then bring me to her place to bake a pumpkin pie, so as to not arrive empty-handed to her friend's Thanksgiving dinner. Well, that was clearly not happening, as there was no way I could fit pie-making into the newly tightened schedule. She later picked me up at the airport and drove us straight to dinner. That was my very first American Thanksgiving, one that I spent with actual Americans celebrating it traditionally. We ate like pigs that night, and it was the best and worst feeling ever. We could have almost rolled back home, actually.
The next day, we opted to avoid the black Friday masses and escaped to Virginia Falls. We took a brief hike to try and burn off all the turkey and mashed potatoes we stuffed down our throats the day earlier (emphasis on the word try, because, obviously, that mini walk would not cut it). After that, we returned to the city and went downtown to have some margaritas and nachos before dropping into my favorite restaurant in DC: Le Diplomat.
Wait, what does this all have to do with pie? Well, the next day, we were invited to a potluck Friendsgiving with another one of my cousin's friends. We decided it was the perfect occasion to bring the pumpkin pie we had intended to make, except, my cousin had absolutely no baking equipment whatsoever. Luckily, this recipe requires only your hands and a rolling pin, yet she still did not have the latter. I ended up using a half-empty, plastic protein powder jar to roll out the dough. We rolled up our sleeves and got to work. My cousin cubed the butter while I measured the flour, and together we made the richest and creamiest pumpkin pie with a buttery, flaky crust, of course.
Three years later, this remains my go-to recipe for anything pie dough related, be it tarts, pies, galettes, or anything else that calls for a profoundly buttery flaky dough.
Ingredients
155 g of AP Flour
130 g of cold butter cut into cubes
3-6 tablespoons of cold water
1/2 tsp of salt
Method
STEP 0. Place your butter cubes in the freezer for 10 minutes.
STEP 1. Place flour and the cold butter cubes in a large bowl. Toss the butter cubes around and make sure they are all coated in flour.
STEP 2. With your index finger and thumb squeeze each cube of butter, and toss again to coat the newly exposed butter in flour.
STEP 3. With a pastry cutter, or with your fingers (I use a pastry cutter because I have it and I'm a bit lazy, but before I did, I used my fingers), keep squeezing and breaking apart the pieces of butter until they are a combination of the size of peas and walnut halves. If you're doing by hand, make sure you toss the flour and butter in between to keep coating the newly exposed butter in flour.
STEP 4. Make a small well in the center of the butter and flour mixture, and add three tablespoons of cold water, toss again to distribute the water throughout and gently start kneading the dough. Add more water (a tablespoon or two at the time) at your discretion, until the dough is able to come together without being wet. The dough should look a bit dry, but not too dry that it does not come together, and a bit wet, but not too wet that it is sticky and, well, wet.
This is how your dough should look like
STEP 5. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap. I like to roll it a bit with a rolling pin once its wrapped in plastic to nicely shape a disc. Transfer into the fridge for at least one hour. You can keep it in the fridge for one week, or store it in the freezer for a couple of months. If storing in the freezer, transfer to the fridge the night before you plan on using it.
(Note: during this time the flour will hydrate making the dough pliable. This is why in the previous step the dough should not be too wet - it will finish hydrating in the fridge).
Notes on the Recipe:
There are two important factors that will make for a flaky crust.
The first is, work fast - the butter must be cold ALWAYS. We are not trying to incorporate the butter with the flour. By working with cold butter we will create pockets of butter in the dough, that, when baked and evaporated, will create layers in the dough, kind of like puff pastry or croissants. If we were to work with slightly warm butter, it would mix with the flour and create a very boring one dimensional sad dough. So, if at any point you feel your butter is melting, be it while making the dough or rolling it out, just wrap the mixture in plastic wrap and transfer it into the fridge for at least 30 minutes before continuing.
The second is to leave relatively big chunks of butter in your dough, If you look closely at the pictures of the finished dough, you will notice a marbling effect caused buy the butter being in big pieces. This will allow the flakes in the cooked dough to occur because it will leave big pockets of air in the dough once the butter evaporates in the oven. If the pieces are too small, the flake effect will be less noticeable. Here you can tweak the recipe to your liking, e.g.,i f you want less flakiness, you can absolutely work the butter until they are smaller than the size of peas.
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