Go to the Recipe: Buttery, Flaky, All-Purpose Pie Crust (Pâte Brisée)
What are the properties of pastry flour: high or low gluten, the texture etc?(I had no idea why cake flour was so important before you explained it)
I've been desperately waiting for this recipe from you guys! can you also make videos for pâte sucrée & pâte sablée (mentioning the differences in handling the dough etc.)?
It is lower in gluten(the main protein that makes a bread chewy) but if it does have some. Here is a good basic overview from the King Arthur Mill:http://www.kingarthurflour.com...
- originally posted by Grant Lee Crilly
We certainly will, can't say exactly when we will shoot them though. Our team loves to bake so you will see more and more coming.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com...
Excellent. I'm looking forward to trying this formula and using pastry flour rather than a.p. I also like to dissolve the salt in the water for easier distribution. I have so many pounds leaf fat from our big hogs that needs rendering. Would I adjust anything here so I can use lard (like my Grandma) rather than butter?
very nice
I would pay an embarrassingly large sum for a ChefSteps intermediate or advanced baking class.
I learned this in baking class this semester and I love your presentation so much more. I now have a great source to reference. I am so glad you are doing baking fundamentals.
Thank you very much, I hope it serves you well.
Hi Marc, You can substitute any kind of lard for the butter in this recipe; you shouldn't have to make substitutions or adjuments. In fact, lard will likely yield a lighter, flakier crust because it melts at a higher temperature, which helps the dough hold structure during the baking process. The only downside is that lard can sometimes have a waxy mouthfeel, since it doesn't melt at body temperature (ie upon contact with your mouth) like butter does.Hope that helps. Happy baking!
Pastry flour has two main advantages for crust. First, it has lower protein than all-purpose flour, which means less gluten development, and thus a flakier, tenderer crust. Second, pastry flour is milled differently, so that fewer starch granules are damaged during the process. This means that the flour absorbs less water than a.p. or bread flours, and thus yields a softer, lighter product. In fact, bread flours have significantly more damaged starch, so the product is much stronger and denser—perfect for bread! Hope that helps!
One of the best crusts I ever tasted. It puffs nicely and is very flaky indeed. I did the alcohol trick : half ice water / half calvados (it was for an apple pie :-)) to up the flakiness even more ^^. Besides, it is very easy to do.Thanks again !
And one more thing! If you use All-Purpose flour for this recipe, you'll need to add more water. AP absorbs water much faster than pastry flour, so you'll have a crumbly mess unless you increase the ratio of water to flour.
Same here!!!!
- originally posted by Desperate dude!
This is awesome! going to give it a try soon!
I encountered a problem with my crust. After removing the foil & weights during the blind baking portion, my crust broke & sunk down over halfway. I took the prepared spring form directly from the fridge, it was fully chilled. Any ideas on what caused it to collapse?
It sounds like the crust was not baked enough if that happened to you. If it falls like that its means its hot and moist still, bake it longer with the weights still inside to remedy that one.
can I make a couple batches and freeze them?
hi, i just made the pat brise and went totaly wrong! =/ it was chilled and so. I have those professional kitchen Ovens, like a hobart one. I set the temperature to 200 ( norally we use 20 degress less when is a normal recipe) its suddenly crambled all over as the hot air hit the pate brise.. i was totaly crazy. Did the temperature was too high? I made the dough exactly like the recupe, 4h first than 1h and baking beans.... super frustated. Any help? ( sorry for my english, im ffrom brazil and at the moment i have to bake 2 quiches for a brunch tomorrow!)
awesome recipe. I used it in a cherry pie and it came out spectacular. Other than pies, what other pastries can we make with pâte briseé? you should do more videos on it
BTW, You guys rock!!!!
DAAANNNGGG. That looks DELICIOUS.
I just set this in the fridge for its 4 hour rest......so far this is the easiest pie crust that i've ever made! thanks! (making your quiche for breakfast at the firehouse tomorrow am)
it was!
One Question
I follow the recipe for "open pit" pies. I'm seen in Theo's photo a traditional closed one, like an apple pie.
1) Will a "closed" pie need to bake the crust bottom first?
2) If so, how the top is bound to the rest?
Thanks
I don't think so. I believe that in this way you'll get two not equally baked crusts.
Is this pastry flour whole wheat or just white pastry flour ?
Just busy preparing this - actually it´s in the fridge right now, waiting to be processed to a quiche lorraine tomorrow. I hope it turns out as delicious as it looks here.
What I did not manage to accomplish is to mold the dough as clean, nice and smooth into the baking dish as you do in the video. Always struggling here a bit. Nevertheless it will look awesome - I am convinced.
So I have to ask this... I'm in Switzerland and our butter has a slightly higher ratio of butterfat. I've never really experienced any issues with American recipes but many people here claim they do. Maybe I just don't know what real pie crust should be like? Does it really make that big of a difference?
In my experience higher butter fat ratio in pastries only enriches the flavor and aides in flakiness. I pose an experiment to you. make the same recipe 3 times. once with American butter (say 80% butter fat), once with slightly higher French butter(82% butter fat), and European Butter which is typically around 85%, with such small differences in percentage you'd be surprised at how each pastries flakiness differs.
Let me know how it turns out...
Richie
Hi, can i make this dough with my hands? I don't have a stand mixer.
Already thanks.
Ok this is the 3rd time I made this crust. I have to use about 1.5x the recipe to get enough crust to fit my springform pan. Also, when blind baking, the parts that are hanging over the sides ALWAYS break and fall off. Next time I will simply try cutting the dough closer to the ridge of the pan. Hopefully that will solve the problem.
Update: Also finding that, possibly because of the dry climate, I'm having to add more water in order for the dough to come together properly.
My version came out more like puff pastry. Maybe I needed to mix it longer so the butter breaks into smaller pieces. I used them for mini galettes, and most of them spread out flat. *sigh*
Hi all, I have made this crust several times - fantastic results.
My twist - have found it very easier to pulse the mix in a large food processor to get that crumby dough texture.
Has anyone tried to add vinegar or alcohol in the mixture? I have heard it stops the gluten network development.
All the recipes I have seen that substitute vodka for water use more liquid, always amounting to more water than would be in this recipe (considering 100 proof vodka is half water). Water is what develops the gluten, so I'm skeptical.
The previous recipe said pastry flour.
The video says pastry flour.
The current recipe says bread flour.
I'll go with bread flour :-)
.... aaaand I nailed it. Great recipe!
Yes! Bread flour it is! We've done a ton of testing of this recipe and realized we made that error. We've fixed the recipe and we hope to fix the video sometime soon. So glad it worked for you!
i love you guys NOTHING to say moore
how much dough you put in the top of pie ?
On the content of butterfat.... If one whipped heavy cream all the way to butter, what would the butterfat percentage be and would it be a good butter to use for crusts? Just curiosity. I used to churn butter when I was little. My grandmother and I would go out and milk our 'Mama' cow (we kept one in milk all season for our own use and let the others wean. we mostly raised beef cattle). and when returning, my grandmother would set me to churning whole she prepared lunch.
So, fast forward to now, I occasionally make butter with whipping cream but usually use it just for spreads. Have you any idea what the butterfat content might be?
Can you expand upon why bread flour was found to be superior? Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that pastry flour makes sense as the lower gluten content yields a more tender crust.
I think the only thing that could make this crust more perfect would be to use alcohol (probably not 100%, but a spirit) to hydrate the dough to basically prevent formation of gluten during the mixing process even more. Of course that would make it more difficult to create an all purpose crust recipe, though i think using a neutral spirit shouldn't change the flavor profile. I think if one was making apple pie, one could use some apple jack instead of water (you can also keep it significantly cooler), maybe even play with some mix of cinnamon schnapps and impart some more flavor into the dough... Anyways, have you guys experimented with using alcohol in your dough, and if you have decided against it, what dissatisfied you with the end-result?
Thank you in advance!
My mother recently became lactose intolerant and I am looking for a butter replacement. Lard is not an option (not kosher). Has anyone tried with fake butter you can find in stores? Duck fat might work but makes a pricey crust!
I know it's been a year since you asked but:
1) It depends. Most closed pies contents need to be cooked as well; for example, an apple pie has raw apple, cinnamon, ect, put in the pie then it has raw pie dough to cover the entire pie. You cook the pie and everything is great. It's really only open topped pies that are blind baked (custard, ect), because the custards are already cooked and only need to set. Blind baking then re-baking would potentially just over-cook the bottom of a closed pie (drying it out)
2) There's many ways to bind them together, I like to pinch the two sheets of dough together. I'll take the second sheet of pie dough, roll it out and then lay it over the filling of the pie - use a knife and cut the dough off around the outside edge of the pie pan. Starting at one spot on the edge of the pie and working the way around the circumference of the pie, pinch until the entire edge has been sealed together.
Hi Cecilia, we recommend Crisco/hydrogenated vegetable oil as an alternative. You can also use non-hydrogenated palm oil with fairly similar results.
Thank you very much Ellen!
what about coconut oil, would that work? what ratio?
Can you please convert these measurements into US ones? I'd really appreciate it. Thank you
Hi Cheryl, thank you so much for your request/feedback. While we do not have plans to move to volume in the immediate future, we wanted to make sure that you are aware of the ability to scale the recipe. The option is available right under the "Ingredients" header and allows you to change the units of measure from grams to ounces. We hope this is helpful!
Hi Daniel, it would technically work, but we don't recommend it due to the low melting point.
You changed this recipe from pastry flour to bread flour. Why? What's the difference in final product?
Hi David,
We did a ton of testing on it and realized that in fact bread flour is better. With pastry flour, the crust is actually *too* tender to withstand a hot oven in a springform pan, and tends to break off and slump during the first few minutes of baking. We found that pastry flour was working for some people, but not for everyone. The protein in the bread flour is what matters: It helps hold the dough together in the oven, and gives you a gorgeously consistent, still very flaky and tender result. Hope that helps!
Depending on the intensity of lactose intolerance, butter may not be an issue. That link states that butter contains only about 0.01g per tablespoon; a stick of butter (8 tablespoons) is 113g, so if one recipe (205g butter) makes eight slices of pie, then a single serving has about 0.018g of lactose, or about the same as in .04g of milk.
That said, if even that amount of lactose is a problem, the big limiting factor is the melting point of the fat. You want the fat to stay solid enough, long enough, to let the gluten/starch matrix solidify as you bake it. If lard isn't an option, this table suggests that cocoa butter or palm oil (or margarine?!) might be a good option. This seems to jive with Ellen's suggestion.
I'm baking mine now, used coconut oil.
Thanks for sharing this really solid recipe! I used bourbon in place of some of the water (maybe a quarter of the weight) to add some flavor and help prevent gluten structure formation, and it seemed to work nicely. I made some pecan pies (similar to your recipe but with fresh ginger and dark maple syrup instead of corn syrup) with this lovely pâte brisée, and they were a hit!
For those who are afraid/skeptical of using bread flour, just make sure you don't overwork the dough, and make sure you have the time to let the dough rest in the refrigerator as the recipe suggests. If you happen to work it just a bit too much, those resting period should help it relax and become tender again.
Those look gorgeous! Thanks so much for sharing!
We'd love to know how this turned out!
Is this pie crust suitable for dessert tart use ?
Yes, don't be fooled by the salt in the recipe.
See the previous replies... it's bread flour.
