Page 35 - Pie It Forward: Pies, Tarts, Tortes, Galettes, and Other Pastries Reinvented

A NOTE FROM THE SWEETIE PIE COLD!

You’ve heard this a thousand times: Your pie dough ingredients
must be bitterly frigid before proceeding. This is advice you must

really take to heart. The rule of thumb in professional bakeries is
that a pie or tart dough should never be warmer than 60°F (16°C).
First, no matter whether the fat you are using is butter, vegetable

shortening, or lard, it must be ice-cold or the fat will be absorbed
into the flour and create a tough crust. When it’s all but frozen, the
fat gets layered in between the flour, and its moisture is released
in the heat of the oven, creating a flaky and tender crust.

Second, if your fat is cold but your flour, water, and work surfaces
are warm, what’s the point of having gone through all the trouble
of cooling the fat in the first place? Keeping the fat suspended and
whole within the dough is crucial to tender and flaky, so it only
follows that if the rest of the elements are cold too, then you’ll fare

better at keeping your butter in the perfect state of suspended
animation until it’s time to bake! So I store my flour in the
refrigerator when I'm making pie dough.

Third, ice water is the standard liquid used in pie and tart crusts,
but that doesn’t mean you actually pour the ice into the mix—just
the ice-cold water. I make a large pitcher of ice water a half hour
ahead of time, place it in the fridge, and, when I'm ready, pour the
icy-cold water into my measuring cup and proceed with my crust.
Add only enough cold water to hydrate and moisten the dough,
but never so much that it gets soggy. Too little liquid, however, will

lead to a crumbly and unworkable dough. Depending on the
relative moisture during any given day, you’ll notice that you’ll
need more or less water for your dough to come together. So
always add water slowly, not all at once, to allow for atmospheric
differences.

Fourth, if you are using a food processor to make dough, you can
first cube your fats into small pieces and then freeze them
completely. The blades make easy work of cutting through the
stuff, and you’ll be ahead of the curve in the cold-dough game. On