Beginning Steps

For the sake of both preparing myself to make puff pastry, and extending this project over the course of the semester, I made a pie. Obviously, those weren't the only two reasons, but in a sense, the first reason was true. As a beginner baker, making something that I view as very difficult, for example puff pastry, seems a bit overwhelming. I see these "amateur" bakers on The British Baking Show making puff pastry, and I think to myself, "I'm definitely never making that on my own". Overall, this is a small step outside of my comfort zone. That's why I made this pie first. Making the crust, uses techniques that puff pastry uses that I thought would be useful. Mainly rolling out the dough. I know how to use a rolling pin, but practicing the technique, and knowing how to do it evenly might prove to be useful in the future. But enough of the that, let's get to the pie.

When selecting the recipe that I would use for this pie crust, I turned to my mother for suggestions. In response, she raved about a recipe from a Cook's Illustrated magazine, aptly titled, Foolproof All-Butter Pie Dough. I asked her why is was so good, and she answered that it was revolutionary. Perplexed, I asked her to elaborate and she replied the following. Apparently, pre-Cook's Illustrated, when making pie dough, you had to make a sacrifice for either the flavour, or the texture. If you choose a butter crust, you get all the taste, but you're left with a tough and dense dough. Or, you could sacrifice the taste, and get a nice, flaky crust using shortening, or some other butter alternative. However, this recipe transcends this pattern. It has both a rich buttery bite, and a nice, flaky, texture.

I'll be honest, I'm a pretty big fan of pie. We eat it quite often in my house, and I've even made it a few times (cherry pie, and key lime pie). I had not, however, made this pie dough before, and it's a pretty weird recipe. Or at least one aspect of it was. To get air in the dough while you're baking it, you shred butter, freeze it, and add it to the dough mixture before you fully form it into a ball. This works because with heat, the butter will melt, and leave space where it was. This leaves small pockets of air in the pastry, which give it more of a flaky texture. Other than that, the rest of the recipe was pretty straight-forward. You add the dry ingredients, mix. Then you add butter, mix. After that, it forms into a ball, which you have to break up, and add more flour. Mix. Then you add the frozen butter bits and form into a ball. From there, you chill it for a couple hours, or until you actually make the pie (I made it two days after the dough), and roll it out into a thin sheet. Now it's ready for the filling, and I decided to make an apple schnitz pie check it out below!

My journey through pictures: