Reading my favorite food magazine, Cooks Illustrated, I ran across a great article & recipe for a fool-proof pie dough. While I haven’t tried the recipe yet, I must say that it changes a lot of common thought about pie dough. Just reading it, things that never made sense now make sense. And the big secret? Vodka instead of water. Here are 2 big things I got from the article.
- What we’ve been told about “the amount of water differs from day to day, depending on humidity” is bunk. It makes sense when you really think about it. How much humidity can flour really absorb? Is it going to be so much that it would make that big of a difference in a recipe? The real difference in the amount of water, it seems, comes with how much of the flour is coated by the fat. The more fat coated flour, the less water the dough can take. The answer, only mix the fat with some of the flour and you’ll get a flakey crust.
- To make a dough you can work with, it takes a certain amount of water. BUT, if you add that water and work the dough, you’ll end up with a tough crust because you’ll make gluten. Solution: Substitute half the water with vodka. The alcohol in the vodka cooks out and it doesn’t contribute to gluten formation.
BRILLIANT!! One of the best articles I’ve read! Here’s the recipe:
Foolproof Pie Dough
Vodka is essential to the texture of the crust and imparts no flavor—do not substitute. This dough will be moister and more supple than most standard pie doughs and will require more flour to roll out (up to 1/4 cup).
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (12 1/2 ounces)
1 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons sugar
12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening , cut into 4 pieces
1/4 cup vodka , cold
1/4 cup cold water
1. Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until homogenous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour). Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.
2. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.