- Hi, guys. It's Rie.
Welcome to Tasty's "Hack or Hassle."
On this show, Tasty producers make a dish
using bunch of different hacks collected by our friend,
Annie.
In the past episodes, I made a cake and cookies.
And today, I'm making my favorite thing, pie.
I love making pie.
My name is almost pie.
I'm the perfect person to do this episode.
I know a couple hacks,
but I would like to up my baking pie game.
(funky music)
We have control pie right here.
This recipe is from Evan Kleiman, one of my food hero.
So, this is a classic apple pie with all-butter crust.
We used the sliced apples, Granny Smith as a filling,
brushed with egg wash.
We use crimping techniques, so it look like emoji apple pie.
All right, let's get started.
So, the first hack is the hack I always use when I make pie,
put all ingredients and utensils in the freezer.
When you're making dough, sometimes you melt butter.
And that is one thing you don't want to do that
when you're making pie.
So, I put all the utensils and ingredients in the freezer.
So whenever I'm touching and kneading dough,
butter is still solid.
So next hack, use shortening instead of all butter.
So, shortening is vegetable-based fat.
I normally don't want to use shortening
because I don't like eating it.
It doesn't have any flavor.
When you use shortening, it is easier to roll
and handling pie dough.
Because when you are using all butter,
sometimes it is, like, falling apart
and it's difficult to shape or roll.
We have another hack,
use food processor when you're mixing dough.
So when you're making pie dough,
you can use those kinds of torture devices.
But when you use food processor,
it is easier and all the ingredients is super cold.
I'm going to put butter and shortening, and pulse.
And also, you kind of want
to make butter chunk like a pea siZe.
So next hack, follow your gut when you are adding water.
When you're making pie,
a lot of recipe book says 'add this much water',
but I never use the amount in the recipe.
I always use less water.
If you use the amount in the recipe,
sometimes the texture is not right.
So, next hack is adding vodka in the dough.
So when you add water into flour and you knead it,
it will create gluten.
But alcohol prevents that and also helps make dough flakier.
This hack is perfect for me
'cause I always use alcohol for my cooking.
Magnum-sized sake.
All right, so next hack is adding apple cider vinegar.
So, vinegar will help preventing gluten forming.
And also, I feel like it kind of gives good flavor.
And start forming the doll.
And you don't want to touch too long
because you don't want to melt pea butter.
It's P-E-A not P-E-E.
You can see those, like, little butter bits.
That is a good sign of pie.
And you are going to divide this in half.
You want to shape like a flat disc so it's easier to roll
when you're rolling.
And I'm going to rest and chill this dough
in a refrigerator while I'm making filling.
All right so next hack, instead of using one type of apple,
use combination of apples.
For this apple pie, I'm using Honey Crisp and Granny Smiths.
Granny Smith is a great apple for apple pie,
but sometimes it's a little bit too tart.
I have Honey Crisp.
Honey Crisp is a little bit sweeter side.
I don't think that you want to use Gala
because Gala is mushy.
So, next hack is peeling hack.
Use this torture device to peel apple.
Ah, ow!
I cut it.
I didn't know there was a blade.
(light music)
So this is not a great start for this hack.
So, I've never used this before.
Oh.
Wow, okay.
Wow, look.
I think this is great tool,
but I don't want to have tools that only have one purpose.
But if you are making apple pies all the time,
I think this is very good tool.
Okay, so next hack is from Chef Thomas Keller.
He's one of the greatest American chef.
And he said dice half apple and grate half apple.
The grated apple cooks faster,
so it kind of gives nice apple-saucy texture.
And diced apple gives you bite.
Usually, I only slice apple like quarter-inch.
But if you like a little bit softer texture,
I think this is a good hack.
And the next hack is use tapioca flour
instead of cornstarch or flour.
So when you use cornstarch or flour,
the filling become a little bit cloudy
when you finish baking.
But, tapioca flour makes it clear.
And I'm going to add brown sugar,
and a pinch of salt, and one teaspoon of cinnamon.
The reason we macerate with flour,
it's kind of like marinading.
You kind of want to incorporate spice and sugar
in the filling.
So, we are going to leave this about 30 minutes.
So next hack, use apple cider,
adding more intense apple flavor.
And I'm going to reduce until like maple syrup texture.
I didn't know this hack, so I'm excited to see it.
Okay, so it is reduced.
I want to try 'cause it looks like maple syrup.
It's delicious.
It's like apple candy.
I have dough.
And the next hack, roll dough in between piece of wax paper.
Used this hack before, but I use parchment paper.
I think both works.
Usually, people just like dust flour on a rolling pin
and surface.
So, another hack is when you want
to roll perfect circle,
instead of rolling only one direction,
you want to rotate it a little bit.
It kind of makes me dizzy.
When you're rolling pie dough start cracking,
but I feel like this shortening is working.
I usually use-all butter crust recipe.
And if I do what I did just now, sometimes it cracks.
I think shortening definitely helps.
I'm still skeptical about flavor.
When I make pie, usually has bits of butter
and flour all over, and it's kind of annoying to clean.
But if you use parchment or wax paper,
there is less dishes you have to do.
So, I'd use this hack.
You wanna use all the juice.
I'm going to add apple cider reduction.
When I rolled the bottom part, I used wax paper hack.
So now, I'm gonna just use flour just see the comparison.
So, you're gonna just dust your surface with flour.
I made pie video with Lokokitchen.
She makes beautiful pie.
And what I learned at the shoot,
she was kind of putting flour once in a while
when you're rolling.
As you can see, there will be no flour.
And if you keep rolling, it will stick to the surface.
So next hack from Tasty video,
we are going to use cookie cutter and make pretty patterns.
So, I have this flower shape cookie cutter.
Now I knew how important your thumb is.
I feel like I'm a cat without whiskers.
I think they lose the direction.
So, like whisker is very important for cats, cat hack.
Now, I'm going to transfer this layer on top of the pie.
Extra hack, you're folding top layer pie dough into corner.
This way it's very easy to transfer
and you can easily find that center.
So next hack, I'm using scissors to cut excess dough.
And I'm gonna tuck this under.
Next hack is use fork to crimp the pie.
I think it's cute.
It's kind of nice, like, rustic pattern.
I finished crimping.
And the next hack, use heavy cream to give nice,
golden, matte finish.
I don't know if I want matte finish.
I like those egg wash effect.
So, we will see.
Use turbinado sugar to give a nice, crunchy texture
on the pie.
And I use this hack.
So, I like this hack.
Last hack, use sheet pan when you're baking pie.
I think this is very necessary, actually,
when you are baking, especially apple pie.
This is something I highly recommend to you to do.
I definitely do it at home
because the juice spills all over,
more like you must do it.
Pie's ready.
Let's bake this and see what's going to happen.
(funky music)
So, my hack pie is baked and cooled
and here is our control pie.
I like shiny finish on egg wash, kind of a little bit dull,
doesn't give any shine.
But, I like turbinado sugar, kind of gives nice texture.
I think cookie cutter maybe looks prettier
when you're making cherry pie or a blueberry pie.
Let's see crimping.
I like classic looking of this.
I also love pie crust, so I like this thick crimping
so I can eat more crust.
So, let's taste test.
So for crimping is kind of stuck in the pie,
so I cannot give a nice slice.
And now I'm going to slice control pie.
So, what I notice is tapioca starch definitely give nice,
clear juice.
I like that.
As you can see control, we use flour,
so it's kind of cloudy.
Let's taste it.
So we talk about when we use tapioca flour for filling,
but actually flavor wise, I like tapioca starch better.
This one we use flour, and it kind of have, like,
floury taste.
And we grated apple and we diced the apple.
Apple chunk holds up so it gives nice crunchy texture.
Grated apple, it still has a bite, too.
It definitely depends on your preference.
I like hack apple filling better.
I think it's because of apple cider.
It's a little bit sweeter.
Control pie, we only used Granny Smith
and it's a little bit tart.
So, I feel like I want something a little bit sweeter.
So for hack pie, we used shortening with butter.
So, let's see how that changes flavor.
If I was blindfolded and taste tested,
I don't taste any difference between all-butter crust
and shortening.
I still have slight doubt about shortening.
So when I make pie, I will definitely use all-butter crust.
But if you are not afraid of using shortening,
I think it is good hack to use.
So, here are my three favorite hacks from today.
One, add vodka to pie crust.
Two, use two different kinds of apples.
Three, use tapioca starch instead of flour.
Thank you so much for watching.
And thank you so much for following along my pie journey.
If you know more pie hacks, please comment below.
And thank you for watching. And don't cut your thumb.
Bye!
(funky music)