I like flaky pie crust. I also like butter. In the world of pastry and baking, butter and flaky pie crust do not arrive at the party together, so to speak. I have long been a proponent of lard pie crusts, because of their crispy and flaky goodness. Vegetable shortenings are also a reasonable substitute for lard; there is a reason that Loretta Lynn used it instead of the lard she grew up using.Butter makes everything better though...except for pie crusts: fats (e.g., lard, shortening) have a low moisture content. When they get blended with flour, as in a pie dough, and subsequently cooked, they crisp the surrounding flour/get absorbed into the surrounding flour, and leave flakes of dough behind. Butter has a relatively high moisture content, (around 20% for regular butter, 17% for the fancy "European Style" butters). This moisture causes the resulting dough of butter blended with flour to be tender, (think croissants), and crumbly.
"How do I resolve this?"
I put my thinking toque on, and decided to get a croissant from Vintage Baking in Glen, NH. As I devoured the almond croissant, I realized that this croissant was the answer! Why wouldn't laminating my pie dough work to develop flaky layers? Laminating dough is sandwiching butter between layers of dough. Puff pastry, croissants, and danish doughs are examples of laminated doughs consisting of a yeast raised dough surrounding whole slabs of butter, and repeatedly folded over to create layers of dough and butter, (Julia Child believed that 73 layers were optimal). Ciril Hitz, considered to be the best bread baker in the world, is an instructor and dean at Johnson and Wales in Providence, RI. In this video he explains and demonstrates the technique for dough lamination.
I don't have an $80,000 dough sheeter either, so here is my recommended method for for a flaky, buttery pie crust using your favorite recipe. You will notice that there is a lot of chilling of the dough: you need to keep the butter cold or else it starts to melt/come out of emulsion, which will result in a "greasy" dough.
Cut chilled butter into small cubes; press together with the flour and salt, add enough ice water to form a dough. Put the dough into the center of a lightly floured piece of plastic wrap (about 20-inches long) and press the dough into a rectangle; lightly flour dough and cover with another piece of plastic wrap. Using a rolling pin, beat the dough into a rectangle that cover the plastic wrap; roll with rolling pin to "smooth out" the dough; chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes; then using the plastic wrap to help proceed with the first "book fold" of the dough. Turn the dough 90-degrees on the plastic wrap, (flour again if getting sticky), and proceed to beat the dough into a rectangle that covers the plastic wrap; fold the dough in-thirds again and give it another beat down into a rectangle. Chill for 30 minutes. Repeat the "fold-turn-bash-roll-chill" process two more times, for a total of four turns. Proceed to use in your favorite pie recipe.
So there you have it. Despite the fact that it reads really complicated...once you get through your first fold-turn-chill sequence, it's really quite simple...with buttery delicious results as your reward.
