October Cooking Group

Lee Middleton was nice enough to share his pie crust recipe. Check out that beautiful pie. The recipe is as follows:

Pie Dough

From Advanced Bread and Pastry by Michel Suas, founder of San Francisco Baking Institute (www.sfbi.com)

260 grams of pastry or all purpose flour (abount 2 cups)

13 grams sugar (about 3 1/4 tsp)

5 grams salt (about 1 1/4 tsp)

182 grams cold unsalted butter (a little less than 14 tbsp)

80 - 110 grams ice cold water (8 tbsp)

Combine the dry ingredients and stir. Add the butter cut into 1 tbsp chunks, cut into the flour with a pastry cutter until the butter is between 1/4" and 3/8". Small sized butter (corn meal sized) reduces the flakiness and creates sandiness or mealiness which I find unpleasant. Larger chunks make flaky crust. Too large chunks make handling the dough difficult.

Add 6 tbsps of the water and stir together with a fork to moisten the flour mixture. Add more water as needed (and it will likely be) by the tablespoonful to prevent getting the dough too wet. You want it to come together with a little effort, just barely getting the last of the flour to stick. Knead in the bowl just enough to make sure all comes together. Over-kneading makes a tough crust.

Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled through, 1 - 24 hours.

To make pie shell remove dough from refrigerator 20 - 30 minutes before rolling to allow dough to move under the rolling pin. Cut about 2/3 of the dough apart from the rest and shape into a round before rolling out to fit the pie plate. Place in pie plate and trim off the excess. Shape the edge into a pleasant shape.

Shape the remaining dough into a rectangle if making a lattice top and roll out to longer than the pie plate is wide and cut into 3/8" to 1/2" wide strips and intertwine to make lattice over top of filling.

Bake at 450F for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350F for the remaining time for a fruit pie. Time will depend on depth and quantity and choice of filling. A deep dish apple pie can take 45 minutes or more at 350F. The corn starch thickened juices will require at least 180F to gel.

PS

Roll remaining dough out to fit into the bottom of another pie plate, don't worry about how thick the dough is, which has melted butter in it. Dip the rolled dough into the butter and turn it over. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, turn over and sprinkle other side as well. Bake with pie above until cinnamon dough is caramellized and cooked through, about 1/2 hour total but check to be sure. When it is cool enough to eat, gobble it up before anyone else gets wind of it.