Basic Recipes
Full Flaky Crust
2 Cups white flour
1½ sticks butter
½ teaspoon salt
~5 Tablespoons water
Add the salt to the flour, then cut the butter in with your fingers -- or if that will make you
eat the butter, you can use one of those metal tools. When the lumps of butter are about the size of peas or cornflakes, gradually sprinkle the water in while gently stirring. The rule for flaky crust is
work the dough as little as possible. When the ball of dough just barely holds together, roll it out on a floured surface.
Semi-healthful Compromise Crust
2 Cups whole wheat pastry flour
¼ to ½ Cup solid oil (½ to 1 stick butter)
¼ teaspoon salt
~5 Tablespoons water
Put together as above. Because it has less gluten, it will be harder to roll out without it sticking or falling apart.
Liquid Oil Crust
2 Cups flour
½ Cup liquid oil
½ teaspoon salt
5 Tablespoons water
Mix flour and salt, and pour oil and water in all at once. Mix quickly and gently, and roll it out between sheets of waxed paper. When you're done, pull the top sheet off, flip the crust over where you want it, and then pull the other sheet off.
This is a dangerous recipe because it's very important to measure exactly. People tend to scoop with the flour cup and fill the oil cup to somewhere below the rim, which creates a dry unworkable dough. You have to pour or even sift the flour lightly into the measuring cup, and fill the oil to the very rim. If that's just not your style, you'll have to adjust the quantities.
Ran's Sourdough Crust
1 Cup whole wheat pastry flour
¼ to ½ Cup solid oil
¼ teaspoon salt
1 16oz jar bubbly
sourdough (more like 10oz if it's fallen)
Mix flour, salt, and butter as above, then dump the sourdough in, stir it up, and roll it out. Don't worry about being gentle with the dough -- this one is not going to be flaky, but it will have a more interesting flavor. If you want the dry flour to be sourdoughed too, just make the crust 8-12 hours before you're going to use it.
Sprouted Crust
To learn to sprout grains, I recommend this
sprouting page. I use the jar method without any cloth or screens -- just my fingers.
Use wheat or rye, and when it's ready, mix in some butter and salt and sweetener if you want, run it through a grinder or a food processor, and press it into a well-oiled pan. I don't recommend this for a two-crust pie, but if you do make a top crust, you'll have to use waxed paper, and even then it will be difficult.
Glutenless Crust
2 Cups glutenless flour (buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa)
¼ to ½ Cup solid oil
¼ teaspoon salt
?? water
I don't like the phrasing "gluten free" or "whatever free". It seems creepy to use the word "free" to mean "prohibited" or "excluded". Maybe they'll put you in a camp to make society "you-free". Anyway, mix flour and salt, cut in butter, add water gradually until the dough holds together. As with the sprouted crust, I recommend just pressing the dough into the pan, and using waxed paper if you make a top crust. You could also roll out a bunch of mini-crusts and patch them together.
Details
Pies are either two-crust, like apple and cherry, or one-crust, like pumpkin, pecan, and cream. All the above measurements are for a two-crust pie. The top crust is always smaller, so for a one-crust pie, reduce everything by about a third, not by half.
Measurement is only important in the liquid oil crust, because to maintain flakiness you shouldn't add more stuff after stirring. In every crust, what matters is the liquid-solid balance, for a dough that will be pliable enough to roll out but not so wet that it sticks to everything and comes apart. In flaky crusts, you take care of this during the water-adding stage. With sourdough, I start it kind of wet and then add more flour until it's stiff enough. So I generally don't measure at all.
In a two crust pie, separate the dough into two balls, one of them noticeably bigger than the other. After a few pies you'll develop a feel for the relative sizes. Then roll out the big one for the bottom crust.
For a roller, I just grab the nearest wine bottle. In ease of use, it's so close to a rolling pin that it's not worth my trouble to get the rolling pin out of the drawer. (And it's easier to clean!) You will probably need more flour than you think. I spread some on the counter, roll the crust a bit, flip it, roll it more, then add more flour, because the original flour gets absorbed in the dough. You need to keep both sides floured. Start rolling with light pressure and work up to heavier pressure as it gets flatter. What you're aiming for is a circle close enough in size to what you need that you don't have to trim the edges. This is a skill that comes with many crusts. You'll probably get nowhere near a circle and have to trim and patch.
There's nothing wrong with a patched-together pie crust. It tastes the same and you can't even see the patching unless it's on the top crust. Even after making hundreds of crusts, I often end up patching because whole grain flour is so uncooperative. Some people take the trimmings and bake them separately (or tragically throw them out), but I use everything in the crust.
So you roll out the bottom crust, wipe a thin coat of oil in the pie pan, put the crust in, roll out the top crust, and
then put the filling in and quickly put on the top crust and get it in a hot oven. The wetter the filling is, the more important it is to put it in the oven very soon after you put the filling in, or the wetness will soak into the bottom crust and damage it. Some people like to do a little sculpture at the edge of the pie where the top and bottom crusts join. I just press them roughly together. The important thing here is that the filling doesn't run out of the bottom crust and down the inside of the pan. If it does, you'll just get a carmelized spot.
Baking time varies between pies. The temperature is generally 350-400 F (175-200 C), at which a filled crust will be done in around 30 minutes, but the filling can take longer.
Guide to Ingredients
Flour. For a really flaky crust, you need white flour, but it's bad for you! Bleached white flour is even worse because the bleaching agents are toxic. Whole wheat pastry flour is a big step down in flakiness, and a big step up in healthfulness. Ideally, you should go even farther and eat only
sprouted or fermented grains (sourdough is fermented), or non-grains like quinoa.
Oil. Solid oil is best for flakiness, but liquid oil is quite good. Also, a good solid oil is much better for your health than the common liquid cooking oils. I think the best is
clarified butter from grass-fed cows, and then other non-factory-farmed animal fats, including butter, tallow, and lard. For vegans,
coconut oil is excellent and palm is good nutritionally but not ecologically. Earth Balance is a good non-hydrogenated palm oil-based margarine. Anything with the word
hydrogenated is very bad! For liquid oils, cold pressed olive and sesame are best, and sunflower is acceptable. The healthful reputation of
canola has been completely fabricated by big agribusiness. Here's page with many links on
fats.
Salt. "Sea salt" is a meaningless marketing term -- all salt comes from the sea, whether it's extracted from water or mined from ancient deposits. The important thing is how refined it is. The less refined, the better. Unrefined salt is good for you, and if you don't have high blood pressure, even several grams a day are good for you. Some common unrefined brands are Celtic sea salt, Lima sea salt, and Redmond "real salt". If your "sea salt" is pure white and free-flowing, that means it's fully refined and less good for you than the cheapest supermarket salt, which at least has iodine added back.
(public domain, anti-copyright, last updated November 2009)