Easy as Pie? Yeah, Right.

I have a complicated relationship with rolled pastry dough.  I know what you’re thinking: C’mon lady, stop being so melodramatic.  It’s just pastry.  It’s delicious.  What could possibly be so complicated? 

I won’t be offended if you roll your eyes.  I get it: I have pastry issues. 

It’s not that I don’t like rolled pastry.  Trust me, I do.  This isn’t some Atkins-diet, carb-hating hangup.  I’ve rarely met a pie, croissant, or cut-out cookie that I didn’t love.  But the dough can be so downright exasperating.  I'm just terrible at working with pastry dough.  Case in point:  a few years ago, I volunteered to make my mother’s famous apple pie for a Thanksgiving celebration with my in-laws (I wasn’t yet married at that point, but I still thought of them as my in-laws).  In my mind, I had visions of serenely rolling out pie dough into perfectly round circles.  After laying the pie crusts in the pie plate, I would fill it with heaping scoops of apples, and then crimp the edges together with plenty of dough to spare.  I would brush the crusts with an egg wash and finish with a sprinkle of sugar, to give that special sheen.  The crust would bake up to be perfectly golden brown and the aroma of fresh apple pie would waft through my kitchen. 

 

That never happened.  Let’s just say that my pie crusts did not fare well.  Attempt 1: I mixed the pie dough, dutifully following my mother’s recipe.  I rolled out the crust and was fairly pleased with the texture of the dough.  The problem?  The crust was far too small for the deep-dish pie plate.  I didn’t think there was any way to keep rolling without the crust becoming precariously thin.  Result 1: unsuccessful.  Attempt 2: I mixed a new batch of pie dough.  This time, I made 1.5 times the original recipe to compensate for the larger pie plate.  I rolled out the crust but knew that something was wrong.  The pie dough was cracking and separating far too easily. I tried adding a few drops of water and re-rolling.  However, I had preheated the oven and it was radiating heat throughout my small kitchen.  I could feel that the dough was getting too warm to produce the perfect flaky texture that a pie crust should have.  Result 2: unsuccessful.   Attempt 3: Yet again, I mixed a new batch of pie dough, making 1.5 times the original recipe.   I rolled out a top and bottom crust.  I was feeling pretty pleased with myself because the texture seemed right.  The top and bottom crusts both seemed to be the appropriate size.  However, my kitchen was even warmer since the oven had now been at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Due to the heat, my pie crust had softened into the wood kitchen table.  I tried peeling the dough away from the table, but it was stuck – really stuck.  I tried sliding the blade of a butter knife between the table and the dough, hoping I could pry the two apart.  This method sort of worked, but about half of the pie crust was still affixed to the table.  And, the bits of misshapen dough I had successfully peeled away from the table were in no condition to be used for a pie crust.  Result 3: Unsuccessful. 

 

At this point, I was running very short on time.  Every flat surface in my kitchen was coated with a thin layer of flour.  I was feeling discouraged and stressed.  I had promised to bring pie to Thanksgiving dinner, yet I couldn’t even produce a decent pie crust after three (three!) separate attempts.  What was the solution? 

 

I did what any logical, even-tempered person would do: With every ounce of strength, I hurled the dough clear across the kitchen so that it hit the wall with a resounding splat.  I mean, my kitchen was already a mess and the pie crust was clearly a lost cause.   What other option did I have, right at that very moment?  And letting off some steam sure felt great.   

 

After sweeping up the pie crust and cleaning off my walls, I had to figure out what sort of dessert I was going to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.  I had already prepared six cups of apples, so the obvious answer was to make an apple cobbler.  I remembered that a family friend had shared a delicious and simple recipe for crumble topping.  I dug out that recipe and whipped up the topping in a matter of minutes.  This crumble topping saved me on that Thanksgiving, as it has done several times since then. 

 

Crumble Topping

With a pastry blender or two knives, cut together 1/3 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup of flour and 6 tablespoons of cold, salted butter.  Spread atop pie or cobbler and bake 45-60 minutes at 400 degrees.

That's pretty foolproof, right?  There really isn't any way to mess up that crumble topping.  

 

To put this incident in context, I should mention that my failed pie crust was not a first-time foray into the kitchen.   When this happened, I had been baking for more than a decade.  I’d even made some fairly complicated desserts.  But until that point, I had largely managed to avoid rolled pastries.  It turns out that pastry dough required more skill and patience than I had in my repertoire.   For the next few years, I consciously avoided any recipes involving rolled pastry.  I didn’t make pies, or sugar cookies, or even pizza dough.  I lived in the world of drop cookies and fruit cobblers.  It was a delicious world, albeit a bit repetitive.  Almost three years after that fateful Thanksgiving day (am I still being too dramatic?), I decided that enough was enough.  It was time to bring my pastry-rolling skills up to snuff. 

 
So, I started this blog.