Page 23 - United States of Pie

Cut the cold butter and the shortening into half-inch cubes. Add
the cubes to the flour-salt-sugar mixture and toss well to coat. Then
begin working the fat into gravelly, pea-size pieces. It’s important to
keep the fat cool, so you don’t want to overwork it—the heat of your
hands can melt the fat. Keeping the fat cool allows it to remain
chunky, creating layers of flakiness in the finished product. By

rubbing the mixture you’re not only combining the fats and the flour,
you’re also incorporating air into the mixture. Pie dough likes air; it
contributes to a light crust.

ICE WATER

Here is where it gets tricky. Prior to this point, you might look down at
your bowl and think, This is just a pile of pebbles. And you’d be right.
That pile of sandy pebbles needs liquid to become dough. Liquid and
touch. This is the part of creating dough that makes people most

nervous. You’ll never see a dough recipe with exact amounts of
liquid measurements. That’s because making pie dough is not an
exact science.
Remember all of those aerated particles that we created earlier?
We want them to remain this way. The only way to do this is to keep
them chilled, surrounding the particles with cold water while turning
the mass into dough. You want to add enough liquid, but not too

much.

KNEADING THE DOUGH