Making your own pie crusts is as easy as, well, pie
It's Thanksgiving the next day and in line with my one man crusade against comfort meals, I am dipping into my time-tested recipe box. Actually, I do not have a recipe box. I have a document in my laptop that is called "recipe field" although.
I am a pie man, through and thru. Few matters supply me the pleasure of cranking out pies in anticipation of essential holidays. Thanksgiving is my day to shine thanks very an awful lot and nothing says Thanksgiving to me like a actual pie or pies because the case can be. And by real I imply made from scratch.
I am a self-taught baker. My mom turned into a professional cook dinner and my grandmother too. But kitchens have been female turf and although I watched them bake on holidays I wasn't allowed anywhere near the movement. It wasn't till I got out by myself that I found out that I not only want to bake, I'm in reality pretty suitable 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 even have a actual hassle with convenience ingredients. I do not care that they're now not natural or that they are mass produced. What bothers me approximately them is that they are tasteless. It bothers me too that I can't inform what is in some thing it is prepackaged. Scratch baking keeps me in control of what I put in my mouth and it also makes me burn up some effort before I get a praise. Self-discipline never sleeps children.
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-half of cups of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of salt
half of teaspoon of sugar
1 cup of cold Crisco
half 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 work the dough after every addition of water. After you have got 1 / 4 cup of the water labored in, sluggish down and begin to test the dough after every time you upload extra water. Test the dough through squeezing a pinch among your arms. If it is crumbly, then upload greater water. When it holds its form and methods the consistency of Play-Doh, stop adding water. Work the dough into a ball together with your palms and wrap it in plastic wrap. Then placed it again within the fridge. After an hour or so, reduce the ball into halves. The quantity above will yield extra than sufficient dough for a crust pie.
Happy Thanksgiving!