Home Baker’s Perfect Pie Crust Tutorial

The holiday baking season is truly defined by pie baking. Everyone wants to make a good pie, but only those who learn the tips and tricks of professional bakers will make not just good, but exceptional pie! Today we’re covering some of the top tips and tricks used by our chefs to create some of the best pies in the baking industry.

Perfect Pie Crust Tips and Tricks

• Use the right flour. Panhandle Milling All Purpose Kamut® Khorasan Wheat Flour is just the right protein content for perfect pie crust! Kamut® Khorasan Wheat All Purpose Flour is milled from an ancient organic non-GMO form of wheat. This special flour is milled from the inside of the Kamut® Wheat Kernel creating a beautiful white all-purpose flour made from an ancient form of wheat. Kamut® Khorasan All Purpose Flour is ideal for use in artisan bread, rolls, and everyday baking.
• Use a combination of fats. We use butter and shortening in this recipe. The mouthfeel of the finished pastry is not waxy. You’ll love it.
• Keep the fat chill. Put those butter pats in the fridge and keep them on the cool-side. That will keep the flaky texture of the crust that you want.
• Vinegar? It sounds weird, right? The small amount of vinegar in this recipe does a couple of things, mainly the acid adds to the tenderness of the crust. It won’t make the crust taste sour, but it’s one of our chef’s favorite magic pie crust ingredients. If you don’t use vinegar, you can just use water.
• Dough Chill. Yup. Don’t skip the 30 minutes of chilling the dough in the fridge. This step is pivotal in not only letting the dough relax and roll thin but also in getting flaky crust because the fat will solidify a bit between the layers of dough.
• Random fact…you can store pie dough in the fridge up to a week and prepared pie shells unbaked in the freezer for up to 4 months.

Panhandle’s Perfect Pie Crust

3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) very cold organic unsalted butter

6 ½ cups Panhandle Milling All Purpose Kamut® Khorasan Wheat Flour

1 ½ tsp. salt

½ cup very cold organic vegetable shortening

¾ cup ice water

¼ cup vinegar

Directions:

• Wash and sanitize hands, tools, and all work surfaces.
• Dice the butter and return it to the refrigerator while you prepare the flour mixture. Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle and pulse a few times to mix. Add the butter and shortening. Mix 2-3 minutes, until the butter is the size of peas.
• With the machine running, pour the ice water and vinegar slowly into the mixer until the dough begins to form a ball.
• Dump out on a floured board and roll into 4 equal balls.
• Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• Roll each piece on a well-floured board into a circle, rolling from the center to the edge, turning and flouring the dough to make sure it doesn’t stick to the board.
• Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan. Roll the edge under and evenly pinch all around the edge.
• Crimp if desired.
• Repeat. Yield 4 (10-inch) crusts (or 2 double-crusted pies).

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