Prepping Pie Dough for the Holidays
(it involves vodka)
Once you successfully make homemade pie dough, it ruins you for life. You will be one of those people who only eat the filling in a slice of restaurant pie leaving the crust slumped over for the waitstaff to whisk away before they bring you the bill for an overpriced serving of pie innards.
I am one of those people.
Homemade pie crust is crisp, buttery, flaky, and better than anything you can purchase. Don’t be afraid! It is easy to make. Pie dough is basically flour + fat + liquid. Let’s talk about the latter two.
Butter and Booze
Some folks use shortening in their pie crust, but I am going to be bold and tell you that butter is better. Yes, shortening can give you a flaky crust but that’s about all. It does not add aroma, color, or flavor.
Butter will give you all of the above. Any type of solid fat cut and pressed into flour will melt during baking and leave pockets of air in the crust. The higher water content of butter, however, creates steam as the water evaporates. This steam creates larger air pockets and a flakier crust.
The steamy situation also puffs up the layers in the crust, yielding one that is lighter and crisper in texture. Light, puffy, crisp, flaky, and buttery. What is not to love here?
All-butter crusts have a reputation for being hard to handle because butter tends to melt when our hot little hands touch it. But, freezing the butter and grating it directly into the flour prevents it from getting melty too quickly. Keeping the dough cold is key.
If you’d rather drink your vodka than pour it into a recipe, you can skip this section. For the rest of you, use vodka in your pie dough.
When flour and water are combined, gluten starts to form and this can make a crust tough and leather-like. We’ve all been subjected to a crust like this. Because vodka has less water in it (thanks, ethanol!), it inhibits the development of gluten. This helps to keep the baked crust tender to the bite.
Will you taste the alcohol? Or get buzzed from eating the crust? No, and no. Plain vodka is flavorless and the alcohol burns off during the baking. While there may be trace amounts of ethanol in the crust, it will not taste of liquor and you most certainly will not get tipsy.
Prepping for the Holidays
Please don’t think I am ready for the Thanksgiving Hanukkah Christmas trifecta that is coming our way. I’m still trying to figure out turkey day side dishes, have purchased exactly zero gifts, and am wondering where I stashed the Christmas cards I bought on sale last year.
What I find that I can do right now without expending too much brain power or finances is make some pie dough and freeze it.
To ensure that no crust gets left behind this upcoming holiday season, what follows is a batch recipe for delicious homemade pie dough. It yields enough dough for three single-crust 9-inch pies, three freeform galettes, or one 18x13 half-sheet slab pie.
Pie Dough
Makes three single-crust pies/galettes or one 18x13 half-sheet slab pie. Thanks to Cooks Illustrated, who made the addition of vodka to pie dough a phenomenon!
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
2 cups (4 sticks) frozen butter
½ cup vodka
½ cup water
Tip the flour and salt into a large bowl.
Grate all the butter using a box grater or grating attachment on a stand mixer. The butter needs to be frozen solid. You can grate directly on top of the flour.
Stir together the grated butter and flour. Slowly pour in the liquid and stir. The mixture should be damp, not wet.
Using your hands, press and lightly knead the dough just until it clings together into a ball. Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces (use a scale if that’s your thing). Press down on each piece so that it forms a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap, then place them inside a ziploc bag and seal.
If you are not using this right away, the dough keeps in the fridge for 2 days. To store longer, place the wrapped dough in the freezer where it will keep for 3 months. Thaw in the fridge before rolling.
Tell Me
Do you make your own pie dough? I’d love to hear how you make it!
I’ve been using a similar recipe using vodka as part of the liquid for years. It makes a lovely pie crust that’s easy to handle. No worries about too much gluten formation. Watch your fingers when grating frozen butter!
Wo! These techniques are new to me, and they all make sense!! Vodka instead of water to minimize glutens forming, and freezing/grating butter is genius!! Thanks for your inspiration, Betty!!