Autumn re-runs: Making your own pie crusts is as easy as, well, pie.
This post appeared originally on 25 November 2009 . I baked an apple pie on Monday and it reminded me of this scolding post from a year ago. Cooking from scratch is a passion of mine and it seems like a better idea with each passing year.
It's Thanksgiving day after today and in line with my one guy crusade against convenience ingredients, I am dipping into my time-tested recipe container. Actually, I don't have a recipe container. I even have a file in my computer this is known as "recipe field" even though.
I am a pie guy, through and via. Few matters provide me the delight of cranking out pies in anticipation of fundamental vacations. Thanksgiving is my day to polish thank you very a great deal and not anything says Thanksgiving to me like a real pie or pies because the case may be. And via actual I suggest crafted from scratch.
I am a self-taught baker. My mother changed into a skilled cook and my grandmother too. But kitchens were girl turf and even though I watched them bake on vacations I wasn't allowed anywhere close to the action. It wasn't till I got out by myself that I found out that I no longer simplest want to bake, I'm virtually quite proper at it.
I know, I know, I hear it all the time; "We're too busy nowadays to bake from scratch." Well, I'll be the first one to tell you that that's a damn lie. I have a schedule that would kill a lesser man and somehow I manage to cook dinner for myself every night and turn out a hell of a spread of baked goods on holidays. Nobody's too busy, but people have different priorities. Having different priorities is fine, just own that. Telling yourself that you're too busy is what makes you neurotic.
I have a real problem with comfort foods. I do not care that they are now not natural or that they're mass produced. What bothers me about them is that they are tasteless. It bothers me too that I can't tell what is in some thing it's prepackaged. Scratch baking continues me in control of what I put in my mouth and it additionally makes me dissipate some effort before I get a praise. Self-field never sleeps kids.
So here's my recipe for pie crust, the first step toward a blue-ribbon apple pie like mine. This recipe's also perfect for the bottom crust of a tartine, but that's a topic for another day. Making pie crusts is not hard, despite what everybody says. All it requires is that you pay attention. Try this, just once, and you will never buy another convenience food for the rest of your life.
2-1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
1 cup of bloodless Crisco
1/2 cup of ice water
Put everything, including the bowl, in the refrigerator for an hour before you start. Then mix the flour, salt and sugar together in the now-chilled bowl. Cut the chilled Crisco into small pieces and work it into the dry mix with a fork. When the Crisco and the dry mixture are blended, it will have the consistency of coarse meal.
Add the bloodless water in small drips and drabs and paintings the dough after every addition of water. After you have 1 / 4 cup of the water labored in, sluggish down and start to check the dough after whenever you add extra water. Test the dough by means of squeezing a pinch among your hands. If it's crumbly, then add greater water. When it holds its form and tactics the consistency of Play-Doh, prevent including water. Work the dough right into a ball together with your arms and wrap it in plastic wrap. Then positioned it back in the fridge. After an hour or so, cut the ball into halves. The amount above will yield greater than enough dough for a two crust pie.
Happy Thanksgiving!