Pie Crust

This was my first attempt at making a lattice top crust.

Ever.

I’ve just never had the desire to go through the extra work when I could much more easily throw a whole sheet of pie dough on top of my pie and walk away to do more important life things like check my facebook.

But this pie crust recipe is new and I wanted to take her for a test drive, see what she could do.  And it turns out she’s pretty cool.

Hope you like your pie crusts female.

So you remember that shout out I gave to my favorite “anti-recipe” book last week?  This one?  Well, I’m doing it again.  Because great pie crust – whether it’s old fashioned wheat or gluten free fabulous – boils down to a very simple ratio.

3-2-1

I love it because it’s something anyone can remember.

3 parts flour (any kind)

2 parts solid-at-room-temperature fat (the kind does matter here – I use butter for the best flavor)

1 part liquid (very cold water)

Follow this ratio and you will get a dough that is the perfect consistency for rolling and making into pretty crusts like the ones that come from the bakeries.

Rustic Peach Plum Pie

This pie?  This one right here?  Is awesome.  Just looking at it makes me want to buy out of season peaches and make it again.  This is my “rustic” pie crust.  It uses almond flour as part of the flour blend.  Almond flour lends an incredible flavor to the dough but it throws off the ratio with the extra fat and so is un-rollable.  And that’s fine if you’re not going for pretty.   But today, well, it’s getting close to Christmas, and I’m thinking we all want something for holiday parties that looks as good as it tastes.

So here we go.

A word on technique – you’ve probably read, and possibly been intimidated by pie crust recipes that stress the importance of time, temperature, and how vigorously you work your dough.   These things are stressed in large part because of the gluten in regular flour.   Pie crust is one of the baked goods where the presence of gluten really does NOT help so we have a little more leeway in our prep.

I don’t have pictures on this one.  Yet.  Next time I make dough I’ll add them on here.  Just a quick explanation today.  It’s really simple once you’ve done it a couple times.  It’s mostly just getting a feel for it – getting to know your dough.  That’s what makes the best pie crusts.

For the easiest prep all you need are a kitchen scale and a food processor.  You can also do this using a pastry blender to bring your dough together.  I have one.  I used to use it.  I ❤ my food processor.  It makes making dough sooooo much easier and quicker.

For a two crust pie:

Grab a glass of ice water and set it on your counter.

Take two sticks of butter and unwrap them, leaving them sitting on their wrappers.  Cut them in half the long way, turn on their sides and cut in half the long way again (so you have four long rods of butter, each).  Then make 8 slices to each.  Each stick of butter is now cut into 32 little equally sized bits.  Wrap the sticks of butter back in their papers and stick in the freezer while you ready your flours.

Measure out 12 oz All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend into the food processor.  It doesn’t have to be this blend exactly.  It doesn’t even have to be gf.  It could be wheat flour if that’s how you roll.  Just make sure it’s 12 oz by weight.  Add 1/2 tsp salt, a Tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp Xanthan Gum (only if doing this gf).  Run the food processor for a few seconds to combine and aerate.  Or picture this whole thing happening in a bowl and whisk together.

Next, grab your butter out of the freezer and dump all the little bits in with the flour.  Hit the “pulse” button approximately 15-20 times.  You want to get it to the consistency of pea sized chunks.  Chunks of butter are good – they are what make for flaky pie crusts by creating pockets when the dough bakes.  Don’t over-mix.  If you’re doing this with a pastry blender, go at it carefully and quickly.  We want everything to stay cold.  If the butter gets too soft you’ll lose your chunks.

Next, grab that ice water and drizzle some into the machine, pulsing to combine.  You want your dough to just come together.  If you can squeeze it together with your fingers and it doesn’t fall apart you have enough water.  I never measure the water.  But if you’ve done the math you know it works out to be 4 ounces or about 1/2 cup (I don’t think I use this much, actually.  Start with 1/4 cup and go by feel.)

Now, normally, this is where you’d divide your dough in half, wrap each half in plastic wrap, pat them gently into discs and set in the fridge.  This step serves two functions – it keeps the butter in the dough cold and it allows the gluten to relax.  If you’re not using glutenous flour you don’t have to worry about that second thing at all.  If you work quickly you really don’t have to put the dough in the fridge.  If it’s a hot day, sure, let it chill for awhile.  But the hour they tell you it has to rest?  And then the 15 minutes you have to wait to get it warm enough to work with again?  Not necessary with gluten free pie crust.

So again, just work quickly, try not to manhandle your dough too much (as the heat from your hands will soften the butter) and you’re good to go.  Start rolling, crimping, whatever you want to make a pretty pie crust you’ll be proud to bring to a party.  Bake as you would any pie crust.

This was a Salted Caramel Apple Pie I made for Thanksgiving.  If I weren’t planning on making about a bajillion cookies and candies in the next week I might make a pie again.   Speaking of which – I’ve got sleepin’ babies so I’m gettin’ me into the kitchen to make some cookies.

Later all!

(Here’s the easily copied and pasted recipe)

Pie Crust

12 oz All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend  (or regular flour)

8 oz (two sticks) salted butter

1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp Xanthan Gum (only if using GF flour)

ice water

Instructions:

Grab a glass of ice water and set it on your counter.

Take two sticks of butter and unwrap them, leaving them sitting on their wrappers.  Cut them in half the long way, turn on their sides and cut in half the long way again (so you have four long rods of butter, each).  Then make 8 slices to each.  Wrap the sticks of butter back in their papers and stick in the freezer while you ready your flours.

Measure out 12 oz All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend (or regular flour) into the food processor.  Add 1/2 tsp salt, a Tbsp sugar, and 1 tsp Xanthan Gum (only if doing this gf).  Run the food processor for a few seconds to combine and aerate.  Or measure into a bowl and whisk together.

Grab your butter out of the freezer and dump all the little bits in with the flour.  Hit the “pulse” button approximately 15-20 times.  You want to get it to the consistency of pea sized chunks.  Don’t over-mix.  If you don’t have a food processor you can use a pastry blender (or in a most desperate case, a fork).

Next, grab that ice water and drizzle some into the machine, pulsing to combine.  You want your dough to just come together.  You may not need exactly 1/2 cup.  Or you might find you need a teeny bit more.  If you can squeeze the dough together with your fingers and it doesn’t fall apart you have enough water.

If your dough is still cold and firm you can continue from here rolling it out and baking as you would any crust.  If it’s a warm day or the dough is getting soft for whatever reason, stick it in the fridge for 15 minutes before rolling it out.

Makes enough dough for one two-crust pie.

Popovers

Persistence.

This photo is from the 5th time I made these rolls.  FIFTH.  The first time I made them they came out so well I said, “This HAS to go on the blog”.  But, of course, I didn’t have any pictures so I decided to just make them again because they were so yummy and so easy.

This is what I got the next three times.  They still tasted great but they looked like hell.  Couldn’t send you guys off with this.  Especially not right before Thanksgiving which is when I was intending to get these on here.  (I was intending to get a lot of stuff on here.  I’ve done soooo much cooking these last couple weeks – amongst many other things –  not so much blogging.)  So anyway, now they are here for Christmas/Hanukkah!  Is Hanukkah the one where you can’t use leavening or is that Passover???  Well, whichever one it is, this is your go-to bread recipe.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you may have noticed I tend toward certain kinds of baked goods.  I generally don’t put up recipes that don’t adapt to gluten free easily from the wheat-based original.  I also generally don’t bother with stuff that is “a good enough substitute” but not the same.  That’s why you won’t see a bread recipe up here.  Yes, you can make gluten free bread.  It’s good in it’s own way.  But it’s not like wheat bread.  It’s it’s own thing.  Can you get used to it?  Of course.  But that’s not my goal here.

My goal is to make really, really, mind-blowingly awesome food.  Food that everyone not just can eat but wants to eat, whether they are gluten free or not.  I did Thanksgiving at my house last week for 24 – a little over half of whom could eat wheat.  So my recipe choices had to be as good as or better than the more traditional dishes.

For the last few years I have not attempted gluten free dinner rolls for the holidays.  I’ve done GF rolls a number of other times.  At best they come out like biscuits.  Which is fine if what you want is a biscuit.  But a light, soft, poofy dinner roll?  That’s the kind of thing that is very difficult to replicate without gluten.  So I just haven’t bothered.  I don’t want something that looks, tastes, and feels like a substitute.

Popovers to the rescue!  I had never made these before but when I read about them a few months ago I thought they would work really well with gluten free flour and I was right.  Now, if you can use wheat (and I realize I’ve probably already lost anyone who is not interested in doing this GF) go for it!  They’re awesome either way.

That’s kind of the point.

Popovers start out as a thin batter.  It’s actually very close in makeup to pancake batter – mostly milk and eggs.  But there is no leavening in popovers.  No baking powder, soda, or yeast.  So how do they rise up out of the pan to great poofy heights, earning them their name???  The answer is STEAM.

You pour the batter into a hot muffin tin (or popover tin if you have one, I don’t) and place it in a very hot oven.  The rapid change in temperature creates steam.  The eggs in the batter stretch to accommodate the expansion of the hot gas, giving the popovers a strong, crusty outside and an almost hollow middle.   The transformation is as dramatic as popcorn, which incidentally, pops for the very same reason.

They’re buttery and soft and they tear in your teeth like wheat rolls do.  Enough yakkin.  Let’s do this already.

First, I have to give a shout out to Michael Ruhlman’s book, Ratio.  It has totally changed the way I cook.  It’s kind of an “anti-recipe” book which lays out very plainly the ratios for all kinds of basic foods we make and eat everyday.  If you know the ratio you never have to rely on a recipe again.  It’s been very freeing for me.  I’m a better cook because of it.

You will need two large eggs, milk, butter, salt, some All Purpose GF Flour Mix (or regular flour), and Xanthan Gum (only if using GF flour).  That’s it.

First, stick an un-greased popover pan (if you have one, I don’t) or a muffin tin in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees.  A popover pan will give you a more impressive poof but a muffin tin works too.

In a medium bowl whisk together two eggs, 1/2 tsp salt (a full teaspoon if using unsalted butter)…

…a cup of milk (8 oz by weight AND volume, just like water), 4 Tbsp of melted butter (not shown – this was part of the puzzle I had to figure out to make this work as you’ll see in a minute)…

…4 ounces of flour (GF or regular), and a teaspoon of Xanthan Gum, if using.  If you don’t own a scale, 4 ounces of wheat flour is a scant cup.  Gluten free flour mix weights depend on their composition.  Mine is pretty close to wheat flour…but seriously…just buy the scale.  It makes life in the kitchen so much easier.

Okay, you see those pats of butter?  Don’t do that.  I repeat – DO NOT BUTTER YOUR MUFFIN TIN.  This is why my popovers refused to pop.  The globs of butter that the recipe TOLD ME to use were what was inhibiting the rise.  If these were glutenous they probably would have been just fine but GF popovers only work if the butter is added with the rest of the ingredients.  The first time I did these – the time they came out so well?  I forgot, I made “the mistake” of not doing this step.  Live and learn.

So anyway – this part happens quickly.  Using an oven mitt, get your popover pan/muffin tin out of the oven.   Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, divvy up the batter between 9 of the very hot muffin tins.  You want to work quickly and carefully.

And here they are right out of the oven!  It’s important that you wait a few minutes before getting them out of the pan.  Trust me on this one.  A few minutes makes the difference between rolls that are sticking to the pan and tearing apart and rolls that actually come out in one piece and look nice.

I’m not real good at following my own advice :p  I did tear this one in half just so you could see the light, airy texture inside.  Mmmm.  They’re light and yet rich – they don’t even need butter.  But they would be so lovely with jam or honey.

There, I waited.  Actually I didn’t.  That was just the last one we pulled out.

Enjoy!

Popovers

8 oz (1 cup) milk

4 Tbsp butter, melted

2 large eggs

4 oz All Purpose Gluten Free Flour Blend (or a scant cup regular flour)

1 tsp Xanthan Gum (if using GF flour)

1/2 tsp salt

Instructions:

Put an un-greased muffin tin in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl whisk together all ingredients.

Remove muffin tin from oven.  Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, divide batter between 9 of the 12 muffin cups and put in oven.  Work quickly and carefully.

After 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 375 degrees.  Bake for another 20-25 minutes.

Let popovers rest 10 minutes before removing from pan.

Serve with jam and/or honey.

Makes 9 popovers but can easily be doubled or tripled.