Pie

Pie crust is one of those things that even people who use gluten flours have problems with. Which is probably why there are so many pie crusts for sale in the freezer department.

Interestingly, the problems that usually arise with pie crusts have to do with gluten. Gluten makes the crust too tough! So most of the "hints" about making pie crusts have to do with making the crust less tough.

For a GF pie crust though, the issue is the opposite. GF crusts are always tender, usually too tender to even hold together.

Originally, the crust was just a way to protect meat from the fire, and seal in the juices. A "crust" could be made of mud (Pie Crust V1), then cracked off before eating the contents. Crusts could also be made of salt, or leaves, or layered fat, or anything that would hold together long enough to cook something. This was, mind you, when people typically cooked over a fire and temperature control was minimal.

Crusts made of wheat flour alone were very tough, like clay, to survive cooking. But with fat added, the crust itself can become edible. Somehow, somewhere, the "edible pie crust" was born.

It's pretty easy to make a tough pie crust from flour. Just add some water to the rice or wheat flour, and make it into a dough. It will hold together. And it will be very tough.

To make pie dough tender, you need to add fat. Specifically, big globs of fat, in thin layers. This has been done traditionally by using a "pastry cutter", which cuts fat into the flour. The fat was usually lard, then butter, then Crisco. Lard is still the best, but only if you make your own. The commercial stuff is pretty bad.

Also, you need to have flour that holds together, if you want to do the rolling and forming that is traditional in America. We could do this here because we used high-gluten flour, which was kind of an American invention. In Europe, the dough was pressed into the tart pan, and often made from other ingredients, like chestnut, tulip, oat, or barley flour. Wheat flour was prized, but expensive.

Anyway, I have tasted European tart shells and they are wonderful, but they are an entirely different thing than an American "pie". Which might be why "American Pie" became so iconic! My goal though, was to recreate "American Pie" without the gluten. This took some time and experimentation, and I don't claim to have "the" recipe yet. But it's pretty close. You can judge for yourself!

Page url: http://www.eatingoffthefoodgrid.com/a/index.htm?hm_pie_crust.htm