Page 55 - Pie Squared

does get everywhere. Depending on how you feel about crevices
filled with flour, you may want to use a pastry cloth. It will come with

a matching cloth for a rolling pin, which is useful if your pin is
scarred, dented, or uneven. Both should be linen and will arrive stiff
as can be. Wash them to soften them up and use the heel of your
hand to rub flour deep into the fibers. Pastry cloths only get better

with time, when they are soft as a whisper and thoroughly imbued
with flour. Some people never wash their pastry cloth, but simply
pack them away in a ziptop bag in the freezer, to be extracted when
it’s time to roll out a crust.

Find what works for you and perfect your technique with the tools
that fit you, your kitchen, and your pie-bility.

The Rolling Pin

Finding the right rolling pin is a worthy pursuit. Go to a good kitchen
shop or visit a baking friend who has a thing for rolling pins. Lift the

pin, feel its heft, roll it forward, roll it toward you, see if you can press
left or right comfortably, guiding the pin (or the dough, eventually)
one way or the other. You’ll find one that fits your hands, one that fills
you with pie superpowers.

When testing out a rolling pin, engage your entire body:
shoulders, wrists, hands. Tapered or straight? Handles or no
handles? Heavy or light? Wooden or silicone? Marble or metal? I
have a few to choose from, the tapered one for cookie dough and a

heavy wooden cylinder I use to roll out yeast breads. For slab pies,
when I need a wide swath of pie crust, I rely on a weighted silicone
pin with handles. The handles keep my fingers out of the way and
the weight helps stretch the dough efficiently, making quick work on

the way to a thin, even swath that falls into the corners of the pan,
holds a crimp, and stands up to decorating.
To roll out your pie dough, first prepare the rolling surface using
blue painter’s or masking tape to form a guide 11 inches wide by 15

inches high. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it warm
slightly, no more than 10 minutes. Once a finger pressed into the
surface makes an indentation without cracking, the dough is ready to