I took a pie making class this evening. Each student went home with an adorable mini-pie (I’m so proud of mine!) and a belly full of a generous slice of (a larger) apple pie. It was lots of fun and I think I’ll be less afraid of pie crusts in the future, now that I know what to look for (pea sized pieces of butter, a particular feel to the dough). Richard of Baking Arts was lots of fun, willing to answer all sorts of questions, and provided lots of info without sounding condescending. Definitely a good time.
Krissa,
small sizes of butter are important – a trick eunice told me about: freeze your butter the day before and use grater on the largest sized holes to grate the butter.
Then the sizes of butter are small and distribute out nicely.
Congrats on the beautiful pie!
-sv
Hmmm, that’s an interesting option. Hadn’t heard that before. Our instructor was all about using lard. 🙂 Blend in a small amount of lard (or Crisco) before you add the butter to coat the flour, basically making it waterproof so as to avoid gluten forming chains once you add the water….