The Quest for an Edible Pie Crust

Peace be with you, (ideally)

I started cooking at the age of 14. Something I didn't entirely have a choice about, since, it was at the age of 14, that I went to live with my father, who insisted cooking was 'woman's work', and that if I wanted to eat, I'd better learn to cook, because he sure wasn't going to!  It's a good thing for both me and my father, that I thought he was worth putting up with, enough to go along with these rather extreme terms, and, it seems I was born with a penchant for the 'domestic', so I really didn't even mind taking on this duty, in fact, I rather enjoyed it. Although it is true, at the time, I really didn't even know how to 'boil water'. (my father seemed to never get tired of teasing me about this fact) Life with my father was an 'educational experience', on all levels, that is certain... 

I got a few preliminary lessons on the 'basics', from his mother, (my dad insisted I go in the kitchen with her, one day, and learn how to make all his favorite foods, so he at least, would not go hungry!) who taught me how to make southern buttermilk biscuits, homemade gravy from drippings, (either bacon or chicken drippings), scrambled eggs with cheese, southern fried chicken, and cornbread. (to go with the buttermilk, which I myself never did develop a taste for. He liked to eat cornbread, crumbled in a tall glass, and then smothered in buttermilk, with a green onion, on the side. And his favorite 'breakfast', was buttermilk biscuits, broken up on a plate, then mixed up with freshly cooked, crumbled bacon, and cheesy scrambled eggs. Then he would smother the whole mess in bacon gravy. I thought he was crazy, the first time I saw him do this, but after being coaxed into trying it, I had to admit, it really wasn't half bad).  And he even took the time to show me how to make some of his other favorite dishes - fried potatoes, beans cooked with salt pork, and lima beans with rice... So I guess you could say, once I mastered the skills of those basic dishes, we had a good chance of not starving, at least.  I taught myself to cook many more things, over the years, by studying and copying recipes, whenever and wherever I found them. I was always clipping recipes from magazines, etc, and I would spend hours copying them onto little index cards, even though half the recipes I saved like this, I never actually used! But I did learn a lot about cooking, and cooking techniques, just from reading all those recipes.... 

By the time I was a grown woman, with 4 children of my own to cook for, I could make just about anything from scratch. I continued to collect recipes and cookbooks, and loved to experiment with many different types of foods. Somewhat to the chagrin of my children, who just wanted to live on simple, all-American 'meat and potatoes' type foods, or better yet, processed junk food! However, I quickly became bored with such a menu, and forced them to put up with all my various 'experiments', such as, when we ate nothing but Chinese food, for an entire month, when I forced them to go on a vegetarian diet for about a year, (this diet did include eggs, cheese, and milk, so as to not be too difficult for them, but they still whined and complained incessantly about all the strange VEGETABLES I was feeding them!) and when I insisted that they eat their P & J sandwiches, on homemade pancakes, rather than bread! (I never could get them to eat the vegetable pancakes, though I really liked those, myself...)

However, in all my years of cooking, the one thing I could never seem to master, even though I made just about everything else, was a good pie crust.  And it wasn't for lack of trying. I insisting on making all my own pies from scratch, I tried to make my own calzones, etc, but without fail, my pie crusts always seemed to come out hard as a rock, no matter what I did, or how many different recipes I tried!

And it is only now, 35 years after I first began cooking, that I finally found a pie crust recipe, which actually turns out good!!!

I'm so happy with this amazing find, I thought I should share it with everyone. So here it is...

(I found this on the 'Simply Recipes' site, while looking for a new recipe for 'apple turnovers' so no, this is not my own recipe, I'm just here to recommend it, to all those people out there, who just haven't been able to make a decent pie crust, to save their life!) 

I've only tried it with apple turnovers, so far, but I have great hope for many future uses for this recipe ... To my utter amazement, the turnovers I made with this pastry recipe, turned out flaky, tender, and not the least bit hard! (although I did use tub margarine, rather than the butter recommended in this recipe. Something I've been doing for many years now, without any obvious ill effects) I might even be able to convince my grandchildren to eat them! (everyone in my family has pretty much learned to avoid anything I make with 'pie crust dough', by now...)

This recipe makes 1 pâte brisée crust, enough for one tart.

('Tart' actually means 'pie', in case you're wondering. This is not a crust recipe, for those little 'mini-pies', we Americans usually refer to as 'tarts'. I made double the recipe, the first time, just to be sure, but now I am very sure, this recipe will accomodate a full sized pie.  Maybe it's a French thing, to call a 'pie' a 'tart'??)

If you are making a pie with a bottom and top crust, double this recipe and form two discs of dough instead of one.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
(margarine also appears to work fine. I just put some tbsp's of margarine in the freezer, and used those, instead of the 1/2 inch cubes of butter, being recommended here)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 to 4 Tbsp ice water, very cold

Start by cutting the sticks of butter into 1/2-inch cubes and placing in the freezer for 15 minutes so that they become thoroughly chilled.

In a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar, pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse 6 to 8 times, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea size pieces of butter. Add water 1 Tablespoon at a time, pulsing until mixture just begins to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready, if not, add a little more water and pulse again. (I used 2 tbsp of water, and the dough seemed to perhaps be a little bit wetter than recommended, but it still cooked up fine)

Remove dough from machine and place on a clean surface. Carefully shape into a discs. Do not over-knead the dough! You should still be able to see little bits of butter in the dough. These bits of butter are what will allow the resulting crust to be flaky.  Wrap the disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. (I only saw the 'chunks' of margarine, after the dough had refrigerated for an hour, but I did see them!)

Remove the crust disk from the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes. Sprinkle some flour on top of the disk. Roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to a 12 inch circle; about 1/8 of an inch thick. As you roll out the dough, use a metal spatula to check if the dough is sticking to the surface below. Add a few sprinkles of flour if necessary to keep the dough from sticking. Gently fold in half. Place on to a 9-inch pie plate, lining up the fold with the center of the pan. Gently unfold and press down to line the pie dish with the dough.