This recipe combines a variety of special considerations for making a delicious tasting flaky pie crust. It is a composite of three hopefully good and different Internet recipes and some general information about different types of flour. The idea is you want to use a relatively low protein flour to make pie crust so it isn't tough. In particular, you want to avoid the creation of much gluten during mixing of the dough ingredients as that will result in tough pie crust, and you can achieve the low gluten goal both by flour selection and by minimal processing of the pie dough ingredients. Also, in this recipe you effectively achieve lower protein/lower gluten by adding a small amount of cornstarch to all purpose flour, thus creating something closer to a pastry or cake flour.
The delicious taste component is supposed to come from the use of buttermilk, which is also supposed to add to the lightness/flakiness of the baked pie dough. Similarly, the use of all butter for the shortening, processed very cold, adds to flakiness, as does the method of minimal mixing, which starts to approximate the directions for creation of other special types of flaky dough, like Filo used in making Baklava.
Note that this recipe, as shown, is best when making sweet fruit filling pies. Otherwise, if you plan on having a savory meat or other filling, omit the sugars.
I rated this recipe as excellent, initially, until I made the pie dough. Yow! Terrible! Changes had to be made during the original attempt to even have a dough dry enough to form a ball rather than being too dry and having to add a bit of extra buttermilk. In short, what you see below is the result of my experiment ... ingredient amounts and methods that actually work, though still in process to achieve excellence. At times I just hate Internet recipes, for often they need a lot of help. I reduced the recipe rating to good and it will stay that way until I perfect it.
Note that you can make half of the dough for this recipe, using it as the bottom of a pie, and then put a crumb topping on the pie just prior to baking. A good combination for a crumb topping is 1/2 cup of flour, 2/3 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 3 or 4 tablespoons of soft butter. Simply mix the dry ingredients together and then incorporate the butter to form the crumb topping. Do check for doneness during baking so the crumb topping does not become dark. You can cover the pie with aluminum foil when the topping is just right, a medium tan in color, to avoid possible darkening. You can also reduce the standard oven temperature used for baking fruit pies by 25 degrees or more for the last 20 minutes of baking.
Ingredients:
4 tbsp. of cornstarch
2 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour (also see the flours information at the end of this recipe)
1 tablespoon of sugar (optional)
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup (1/2 lb.) of unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 cup of cold buttermilk
egg wash (optional)
sanding sugar (optional, I use Demerara sugar)
Directions:
Combine the flour, cornstarch, sugar (if using), and salt in a bowl. Mix briefly to combine those ingredients.
Add the cold cubed butter gradually while tossing the mixture with a large spoon to coat the butter with the flour mixture.
Dump the mixture out onto a clean surface and use a rolling pin to roll the butter into thin sheets, combining it with the flour. Use a bench scraper to scrape the rolling pin and to bring the mixture back into a pile as necessary. Continue until all of the butter is "barely incorporated" into the flour. Do not overmix. The mixture will be very sloppy looking.
Special Note: I am thinking that the entire process of combining the flour mixture with the butter, manually, as described above, is silly, particularly when you can achieve 90 percent of the desired effect using an electric mixer with the paddle attachment (not the dough hook) on a very low speed for a limited amount of time, and a soft spatula to force the mixture down from the inside of the mixing bowl during mixing. I will be trying that approach soon as I experiment further. And as noted earlier, do not overmix, or the goal of having sheets of buttery dough will be lost.
Return the mixture to the bowl and place it in the freezer for 5 minutes to chill the butter.
Remove the mixture from the freezer, let it rest for a minute or two, and add half of the cold buttermilk evenly over the surface. Use a spoon and then your hands to stir/combine the mixture until it comes together into a dough ball. Do not knead the dough. If the mixture is too dry, meaning it won't form a ball that stays together, add the rest of the buttermilk a teaspoon at a time and briefly mix it by hand to form the dough ball. Use only as much buttermilk as necessary to form the dough ball. Discard the remainder, if any, of the buttermilk.
Cut the dough into two roughly even pieces and flatten/form each piece into a disk about five inches in diameter. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and chill it/them in the refrigerator for an hour.
When ready to roll out the dough, let it rest at room temperature for five to ten minutes. On a lightly floured surface, dust the disk surface with flour and then use a rolling pin to roll out the first disk of dough into a rough 13 inch circle. The dough should be between 1/8th and 1/4 inch thick. Transfer the dough to 9-inch diameter glass pie plate.
Note that the transfer may be a bit tricky for flaky pie dough as it may have a tendency to fall apart. The easiest way to do it is to roll the rolled out dough around the rolling pin, well centered, gently, and then unroll it from the rolling pin directly onto the pie plate from one side to the other. Part of that procedure is making sure the last of the rolled up dough is not sticking to what was rolled up earlier, else unrolling won't happen.
Once that is done, then gently lift a small area of dough near the outside edge of the pie plate to help/let dough in that area to drop to the bottom of the inside of the pie plate. Continue that process, working all the way around the pie plate. At that point the dough is perfectly fitted into the pie plate, except for excess dough.
Form/press the excess dough onto the top edge surface of the pie plate, leaving 1/2" of overhang beyond the edge of the glass, cutting off any additional excess with kitchen shears. Then fold the excess dough under itself on the top surface edge of the pie plate.
Fill the pie with the desired filling. Be generous ... Who wants to eat a wimpy pie that is mostly dough?
Repeat the rolling procedure with the second dough disk. Cut the dough into strips if you want to make a lattice over the filling, or leave the circle intact and cover the filling completely, using the same "roll up the dough onto the rolling pin" method used earlier, then cutting a few air vents on the top dough cover with a sharp knife.
If necessary, when covering the pie completely, cut off excess top dough as before, leaving 1/2" of dough overhang, then pinch the top and lower dough sections together all around the top of the pie to seal them together and create an attractive border to the crust, as described next.
Fold the edges of the top and bottom crusts together and use your index fingers and thumb to pinch the dough into a pattern as you work your way around the pie plate.
Optionally, brush the top of the pie crust with egg wash (one egg whisked plus two tsp. of water, whisked together) and then sprinkle it with sanding (large grain) sugar. I like doing both for appearance and taste.
Bake the pie according to the instructions for your specific pie recipe. Different fillings will require different temperatures and time. Fruit filling pies typically are baked for 40 to 45 minutes at 400 degrees F. Sometimes it is necessary to cover the pie with aluminum foil for the last 15 minutes of baking to avoid having the top crust become too dark. In other words, check it out while it is baking and do whatever makes sense at that time, like at 20 minutes and every 10 minutes thereafter. Alternatively you can reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees after the first 20 to 30 minutes of baking.
Let the pie cool to room temperature on a wood cutting board.
Serve the pie in whatever way pleases you, with or without ice cream, or coffee, etc.
Below is a list of the protein content of various flours. As noted earlier, higher protein content in the flour leads to higher gluten formation in the dough, which is desirable in bread dough but certainly not in pie crust dough:
Bread Flour: 14 - 16%
All Purpose Flour: 10 - 12%
Pastry Flour: 9%
Cake Flour: 7-8%
Add 2 tablespoons of corn starch to a scant cup of all purpose flour to approximate the protein content and handling behaviour of cake or pastry flour. To do this, add two tbsp. of corn starch to a measuring cup, then fill it the rest of the way to the top with all purpose flour. I suggest varying the amount of cornstarch, starting with only 1 tablespoon in a cup of flour, until you find the best mixture for the flour you are using. Note that cornstarch will tend to make a dough sticky and you may find yourself adding flour to form a decent dough ball. So, experiment.