Madison Avenue had it out for the 1970’s housewife. Floors didn’t just need to be clean; they had to be shiny too. I mean, these two friends sharing a summer house with their families almost came to blows because one liked shiny floors, and the other kept ruining the shine by mopping up behind super messy kids with a detergent-based cleaner.
Who can forget every 70’s housewife’s horror—ring around the collar? Everyone knows her husband’s ability to get a promotion at work hinges on her ability to properly clean his shirts at home. (There doesn’t seem to be a 70’s-era companion product to help her husband have a less nasty neck. Why is that? Prevent ring around the collar, fellas, by using soap.)
This woman discovered ring around the collar while she was packing her husband’s suitcase for his business trip.
This poor woman’s bird is mocking her incompetence in doing her husband’s laundry.
And then, there is the matter of piecrust. Is our 1970’s housewife’s piecrust flaky? It better be because anything less than a flaky piecrust is a moral failing of epic proportions. This woman wants to make sure her snarky friends know her piecrusts are flaky—even on the bottom—so she serves her pies upside down.
The pressure on our dear housewife had to be enormous! Which led to convenience products and the “All Ready Pie Crust little white lie.”
And so a whole generation who watched way too much commercial television, like me, grew up thinking piecrusts were hard to make.
The truth is making a pie crust is not all that hard. There is a little bit of an art to it—kind of like making buttermilk biscuits—but once you get the feel for it, you’ll never go back to the red box in the refrigerator section unless you are just absolutely strapped for time or at the beach without your pastry blender.
A couple of years ago, I set a goal to learn how to make homemade pie crust. I thought it was going to be a big to-do and take a whole bunch of tries, but it didn’t. I had a little trouble with getting the first batch rolled out and on my chicken pot pie without falling apart. I did a better job of keeping all the ingredients super cold from then on, and all was well.
My favorite book for piecrust recipes is The Southern Pie Book by Jan Moore and published by Southern Living. I don’t think I’ve made any of the actual pies in this book, but it has recipes for 17 different piecrusts, and I’ve made several of them. One of these days I’m going to get around to trying the Cheddar Piecrust with my apple pie recipe. It will be good, or it will be a disaster. The only way to know is to try it.
If you have never made a homemade piecrust before, I recommend making what the book calls the Deep South Piecrust first. It’s made with both butter and lard for the fat, and it is easier to handle during the rolling and transferring to the pie plate. You can then graduate to the all-butter piecrust which is has the best flavor but is a little trickier to work with. They both are very good, and most importantly, flaky.
I challenge you to give one of them a try, and if any of your friends are snarky about the flakiness of your final product, find some better friends.
Here are two straightforward recipes:
Deep South Piecrust
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup cold lard, cut into pieces
4-5 tablespoons of ice water
Combine flour and salt in a bowl, and cut in butter and lard with a pastry blender—just like you do for biscuits—but stop once the flour-covered bits of fat are the size of small peas. Sprinkle ice water over the bowl one tablespoon at a time and stir until all the dry ingredients stick together enough to form a ball. Shape into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
When you are ready to make your pie, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it’s about a 13-inch circle. The easiest way to get the dough into your 9-inch pie plate is to roll it over your rolling pin and carefully unroll it onto the plate. Ease it into the bottom of the plate without stretching the dough and lightly push it onto the bottom and against the sides.
If your recipe calls for prebaking your piecrust, fold under the piecrust that is hanging over the edge of the pie plate and crimp in whatever design you prefer. Cover the pastry with aluminum foil, fill with dried beans, and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and finish baking until gold brown, or about 5-10 more minutes.
If you don’t need to prebake, fill with your preferred pie filling and bake according to the directions for your pie.
All-Butter Piecrust
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
4-5 tablespoons ice water
Combine flour and salt in a bowl, and cut in butter with a pastry blender—just like you do for biscuits—but stop once the flour-covered bits of fat are the size of small peas. Sprinkle ice water over the bowl one tablespoon at a time and stir until all the dry ingredients stick together enough to form a ball. Shape into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
When you are ready to make your pie, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it’s about a 13-inch circle. The easiest way to get the dough into your 9-inch pie plate is to roll it over your rolling pin and carefully unroll it onto the plate. Ease it into the bottom of the plate without stretching the dough and lightly push it onto the bottom and against the sides.
If your recipe calls for prebaking your piecrust, fold under the piecrust that is hanging over the edge of the pie plate and crimp in whatever design you prefer. Cover the pastry with aluminum foil, fill with dried beans, and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove the beans and finish baking until gold brown, or about 5-10 more minutes.
If you don’t need to prebake, fill with your preferred pie filling and bake according to the directions for your pie.
One thing I have found in experimenting with homemade pie crusts is the type of butter you use matters. I’ve used all sorts, but for some reason Irish butter makes the best piecrust. I use Kerrygold butter, and a few years ago, I almost started an international incident when I mentioned that fact on Twitter.
Bottom line: silly 1970’s commercials aside, don’t be afraid to make your own homemade piecrust. It’s totally worth the effort.
I had to look up whether piecrust was one word or two. Merriam-Webster has it as one word. The Cambridge English Dictionary says it is two. We report; you decide.
Interesting Stuff From the Interwebs
For some reason “flaky” is a key word in describing piecrust in advertising. This is a hilarious blooper reel of real life Mainers Sonya and Jack Palmer flubbing their lines in this Dysart’s Restaurant and Truck Stop ad. He keeps stumbling over “flaky.” And then she does too! They are pretty much everyone’s grandma and granddad.
Saturday Night Live even made a version of it.
Run out and get you some Kerrygold butter this week because next week we are going to talk about apple pie, and I’ll show you how easy it is to make a lattice crust for the top.
Until next time,
Karla