hey bakers john canal from prep kitchen
here and today i'm going to show you how
to make the perfect pie crust every time
throwing in all my tips and tricks food
processor by hand you will be able to
make a great pie crust no matter what
let's get started i'm using a food
processor for this but you can do it by
hand so easily i'll explain how in just
a few minutes it's almost as fast and
you get a really good result too
300 grams or two and a half cups of
all-purpose flour right into the bowl of
your food processor
one quarter cup of sugar you could use
like a couple tablespoons if you want it
less sweet if you're making a savory
like quiche dough
just skip the sugar half a teaspoon of
salt
that's it okay we're going to give this
a whiz now now whizz it up just pulse
soap mixes everything together
i will sometimes give it a shake
just to make sure
now it's time for the butter some people
will use shortening in their pie crust
and the advantage to that is that you
get a really really flaky pie crust but
i will not use shortening it is a
hydrogenated fat and i'm not living for
that life i will use plain old butter
and get a butter crust i'm adding 1 cup
or 226 grams of
cold
cubed butter just toss it all right in
there
it's a good idea to cube your butter
first and then just keep it in the
fridge for when you're ready that way
it'll be nice and cold
so if you're making this by hand without
a food processor which is what i used to
do for years
just get your dry ingredients in a large
bowl whisk them together then take your
butter
freeze it
use a cheese grater and just grate your
butter into the flour
mixing as you go so there's not a giant
clump and then when you're ready
drizzle in your ice water maybe vodka if
you're using it too and then just
crumble it up you can use a knife you
don't want to make the butter too warm
same steps afterwards for working the
doughs okay let's pulse this up a couple
times
take a look not putting my fingers in
this death contraption and you can see
here i have a crumbly mixture
like
you know lentil-sized pieces of butter
not pea-sized
if you want a really flaky pie crust you
would like to have giant chunks of
butter in there but if you're going to
make any kind of a pattern a lattice
little stamped out shapes you want to
have a more uniform pie crust
okay
now i'm going to have a quarter cup
mixed in
mostly with ice water
maybe like three tablespoons of ice
water but i'm taking some vodka
so the vodka will
make your dough come together but it's
not going to like hydrate the flour so
it let's bake off
when you're baking you're not going to
taste any vodka nothing to worry about
and you're not going to activate the
gluten as much
alright so i'm going to drizzle this in
while i pulse
okay take a look
look at this now it's dough isn't that
crazy
don't keep adding water or vodka to it
it's done okay we're gonna roll this out
now
remove that blade and set it aside
carefully
it's so sharp
all right we're going to dump this out
right onto our pastry mat if you don't
have a pastry mat you can work on a
sheet of parchment paper or even
directly on your counter
but it helps to have something between
your counter and what you're dumping out
because if it sticks
it's just annoying okay like i said this
looks like a crazy big mass of flour but
you squeeze it with your hands it
becomes pastry dough it's so cool
all right
i like to just
use the pastry mat
to bring it together a few times and
you're not going to need it but
what you are going to do is
knead it
just like once or twice
and don't worry if it seems crumbly now
because when you let it rest in the
fridge it'll
all
even out all those little specks of
moisture will seep together there you go
you see it's
it just needs to be pressed
and then just
flatten it out into a disc
just collect all those scraps that fell
to the side i'm going to wrap this in
plastic
i'm just struggling with this plastic
over here
all right wrap it well in plastic you
don't want it to be exposed and dry out
in the fridge and now we're going to
chill it you can chill it overnight if
you want it's nice to like step things
out especially when you're busy but at
least give it i would say
an hour in the fridge after your dough
is chilled out in the fridge for an hour
to overnight we're gonna take it out and
then let it come a little bit back to
room temperature if it's super cold
it'll crack right away so it needs to be
chilled through but then brought back a
little bit
okay so unwrap it
you can still see all those beautiful
specks of butter in the flour
liberally sprinkle some flour on the
surface you're going to do this a couple
times because you do not
want your pie crust to stick i'm also
using a pastry mat again because it lets
me lift things off manipulate it i have
to worry about anything
sprinkle the top with flour get a
rolling pin and rub that with flour too
everything will help now begin pressing
and as you do this
you can frequently move the dough around
you probably will get a crack don't
worry about it just pinch it together
and everything will work out
try to apply even pressure it'll make
things much better for you in the end
and you don't have to roll all the way
out to the edge because that makes the
edge a little bit thinner than
everything else which is not what you
want
a little more flour
i'm going to flip it upside down look at
all those beautiful cracks it's okay
don't worry
pinch pinch pinch
and keep rolling
and add some more flour to the top just
spread it around
excess goes on your rolling pin
don't rush this part take your time it's
a little bit of
kind of zen meditation for you
and i find that when you make pie crusts
if you start getting anxious about it
and like
rushing steps or
kind of losing track of what you're
doing bad things can happen
so i want to end up with about a quarter
of an inch
all the way around
notice i'm changing the direction that
i'm rolling in as well
a little bit more flour
and this is the nice thing about the
pastry mat you can just pick the whole
thing up and it really helps you
all right that's great now to lift this
up you can either fold it into quarters
or i like to roll it on my pin
let that pastry mat give you a head
start and now
here's your dough ready to roll into
whatever you want i'm using of course a
pie crust roll that back in try and
center it
for this step i'm going to press in
because i don't want to stretch the
dough out if you start stretching your
dough out when you manipulate it it can
shrink back more easily
and you're not going to have the pie
shape that you want it'll be like a bit
shrunken
you can do whatever edging detail you
like i'm going to do a really really
basic one
i'm just going to trim the excess pie
dough off with some scissors
so this is actually fine if you want you
can fold the pie crust in on itself and
then do that pinching with your thumb
and two fingers that's the classic edge
however this glass pipe form is so
slippery and has really steep walls
actually so i learned the hard way that
if you do that and like bring the pastry
all the way in
there's a higher probability it'll slide
down during bacon
bacon baking even if you do all the
right steps so what i'm going to do is
kind of a cheat
i'm going to hold my thumb out and then
press in like this
so i'm going to get a nice kind of
rustic edge but the pie will still be
clinging to the glass edge and won't
slide down as easily just repeat that
all the way throughout your pie this is
great because you can bake the pie shell
up it'll look kind of pretty and hold
everything in there but if you're making
like a lattice top for an apple pie or a
blueberry pie then you're going to want
a different edge most likely
this looks pretty good to me it's going
to go into the freezer but first we're
going to do a little bit more prep work
so we can toss it directly into the oven
right as soon as it's chilled properly
trusty sheet of parchment paper
i'm going to fold this up
does not have to be exact so don't worry
okay
so
from the edge here
now i have my circle
i'm gonna frill the edges a bit
now we can place this directly
into our pie shelf look how pretty that
is perfect if you're making a no-bake
pie like any kind of a mousse a curd
whatever you're going to want to blind
bake the pie shell and then bake the pie
shell completely when you do that you
need to give it some support so i have
my paper here to protect it but we're
gonna add in this whole
little heavy duty aluminum foil
contraption that i made
and it just pops right in i filled it
with beans
you can use pastry weights as well i
actually have some i have no idea where
i put them
sad
but beans work too and anyways what's
gonna happen is after this chills in the
freezer you're gonna bake it but just
press that foil up against the edge if
you're using a fresh sheet just you know
crumple it in carefully and then have it
go right to the edge
we're ready to freeze this so you can
freeze it overnight if you want or for
as little as like 30 minutes
so my pie crust has been baking for 15
minutes at 4 25 and you can see the
crust is nice and you know it's coming
along it's not melty perfect
now we're just going to remove our very
hot
very hot foil
and take our paper out too
i whipped up a really quick egg wash
with a tablespoon of cream and one egg
just mixed in a small container you can
use milk if you want instead
we're gonna brush the entire
surface with the egg wash
doing this will make it nice and golden
brown and give you a pretty sheen as
well but
it also protects the crust and helps it
maintain its crispness even if you're
adding in a wet filling it's like a
little barrier to protect it so i like
to get the edge really well because
that's what you're going to see
and it needs to be pretty right
so dock the bottom just pierce it with a
fork this will help steam escape
if you get little rips in the bottom no
one's going to see them it doesn't
matter
now we're going to baby our pie crust by
tenting it you can buy like little
pre-made metal rings to protect your pie
shell
but for me they always are the wrong
size and
it doesn't work out foil this works
better so
measure out some foil fold it in half
and gently
create a ring
we're going to fold in and this will
protect the edge so it doesn't burn
while the rest of the pie crust gets
that nice golden color and really crisps
up if you don't tint your pie crust
you'll get like a black and really
really dark
almost bitter tasting edge while the
rest of it is nice and perfect so
tinting makes a big deal
place this onto a baking sheet
hopefully it's not too slippery
and we're going to bake this again for
10 to 15 minutes at 425
then reduce the temperature to 375 and
continue baking you can rotate your pie
crust as well
if you want and then we're going to be
checking it at 10 minute intervals to
see how golden it is
well that was so easy look how nice look
at this beautiful color you can use it
for any no-bake pie filling it is going
to be just so crunchy and delicious but
before i say goodbye i want to show you
what happens when you don't support your
pie crust properly
this is one of the test batches from
yesterday and it looks okay from this
one little angle
but look at this sag
it's because it wasn't well supported i
actually took the tin foil out too early
if you like this recipe use it to make
my chocolate pie it's an airy rich just
silky chocolate pie that'll blow your
mind and you could also use the same
recipe to make my apple hand pies
they're little mini apple pie cookies
that are
just full of caramel apples crunchy
pastry and they will blow your mind if
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