Harte
Senior Member
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I've threatened and warned, and now it's here. Your guide to the holiday pumpkin pie from scratch (sort of.)
The dough recipe can be found here:
It's called "Pie Dough Cockaigne" and is supposed to make two single-crust doughs. Personally, I increase the recipe by 50% as will be explained below.
Measure out the flour, salt and sugar into a large mixing bowl:
Have your butter and shortening broken up and frozen. Also, separate into two halves:
I put a little flour on the paper plate to make the chunks stay separated. That thing on the right is my pastry blender.
You want to keep your mixture cold - keeping the fat from melting out helps with flakiness.
I use the pastry blender, but lots of people use two knives crisscrossing through the mixture to blend the fat into the flour:
Do half the fat first and blend it in real good. The texture should LOOK LIKE (not feel like) cornmeal:
Blend in the other half of the fat, this time leaving smallish chunks (these make the flakes):
You want to use ice water - remember we're keeping it cold:
Measure in the water one tablespoon at a time, sprinkling it all around and lightly stirring it in with a fork every couple of tablespoons. It ends up looking kind of raggedy:
At this point, make sure you've gotten all the dry ingredients moistened (by stirring the underside to the top, not by adding more water) and you should be able to gather the dough into balls:
The extra you see in the bottom is one of the reasons I increase the recipe by 50% - also I like to have extra dough to make sure I have enough for what follows.
Place the dough on a good-sized piece of plastic wrap (I use Glad. Not because I like to spend extra but because I don't have the time or patience to be constantly untangling my plastic wrap like the cheap ones make you do.) Form the dough into a round disk shape, then wrap it up:
Put your dough(s) in the refrigerator on a flat surface. Let it rest refrigerated for several hours. This is very important, don't skip this step or your dough will be crumbly.
Bring to room temperature before you try to roll it.
More to come.
Harte
The dough recipe can be found here:
It's called "Pie Dough Cockaigne" and is supposed to make two single-crust doughs. Personally, I increase the recipe by 50% as will be explained below.
Measure out the flour, salt and sugar into a large mixing bowl:
Have your butter and shortening broken up and frozen. Also, separate into two halves:
I put a little flour on the paper plate to make the chunks stay separated. That thing on the right is my pastry blender.
You want to keep your mixture cold - keeping the fat from melting out helps with flakiness.
I use the pastry blender, but lots of people use two knives crisscrossing through the mixture to blend the fat into the flour:
Do half the fat first and blend it in real good. The texture should LOOK LIKE (not feel like) cornmeal:
Blend in the other half of the fat, this time leaving smallish chunks (these make the flakes):
You want to use ice water - remember we're keeping it cold:
Measure in the water one tablespoon at a time, sprinkling it all around and lightly stirring it in with a fork every couple of tablespoons. It ends up looking kind of raggedy:
At this point, make sure you've gotten all the dry ingredients moistened (by stirring the underside to the top, not by adding more water) and you should be able to gather the dough into balls:
The extra you see in the bottom is one of the reasons I increase the recipe by 50% - also I like to have extra dough to make sure I have enough for what follows.
Place the dough on a good-sized piece of plastic wrap (I use Glad. Not because I like to spend extra but because I don't have the time or patience to be constantly untangling my plastic wrap like the cheap ones make you do.) Form the dough into a round disk shape, then wrap it up:
Put your dough(s) in the refrigerator on a flat surface. Let it rest refrigerated for several hours. This is very important, don't skip this step or your dough will be crumbly.
Bring to room temperature before you try to roll it.
More to come.
Harte