I bake. Okay, I bake a lot. From scratch. I like to know what my family is eating and I like to avoid as many unhealthy ingredients and preservatives as I can.
For YEARS, I've tried to make a pie crust that doesn't use any shortening because partially hydrogenated oil (aka: shortening) isn't healthy. The problem is that butter typically creates heavier confections while shortening creates things that are crunchy, flaky, and light... which is basically what people want from their pie crust.
After way too many failed full-butter pie crusts, I decided to allow SOME shortening in my pie crust recipe and that's when I discovered this pie crust recipe by Aarón Sánchez. I tweaked it a bit to work for my healthy-er style and my high-altitude baking requirements (and you may need to adjust it to work where you live), but I really like the end result: flaky enough for a pie crust, but containing more butter than shortening so that it still qualifies as "healthy-er."
First Important note: DO NOT DOUBLE THIS RECIPE. In simple terms, it really messes up the end result and wastes a lot of perfectly good ingredients. Trust me. Just don't.
Second important note: Pie crusts are inherently tricky, but the best thing to remember is to KEEP THE INGREDIENTS COLD AT ALL STAGES until the pie crust is actually in the oven.
Third important note: Unless you are a skillful pie crust maker, plan on making this recipe more than once before it turns out really well. This isn't a fail-proof cookie recipe; this is an intermediate to difficult skill level recipe (depending on your current skills). Learn from each attempt and get better each time.
My Favorite Pie Crust
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp shortening, chilled
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, chilled
1 1/2 cups flour, spooned and leveled
2 Tbsp coconut sugar (which has a lower glycemic index)
1/2 tsp salt
6+ Tbsp ice water (put a lot of ice cubes in a glass of water)
Instructions:
1. Measure shortening and butter and cut into small pieces. Put them in a bowl (preferably glass or metal because that will help chill the contents faster) and put the bowl in the fridge for a while. Thirty minutes is a safe amount of time. Don't rush this step.
2. Put the flour, coconut sugar, and salt in a food processor with the blade attachment. Pulse a few times.
3. Add the shortening and butter and pulse repeatedly until the large pieces become small pieces.
4. Add water one tablespoon at a time, pulsing between each new tablespoon of water. The total amount of water is a bit tricky because it depends on multiple factors including seemingly ridiculous things like the room temperature and humidity in your house. To test if you have enough water, try pressing the ingredients against the side of the food processor bowl. The mixture should stick to the side without feeling overly wet when it's ready.
5. Pour the mixture onto parchment paper or waxed paper (so you can avoid single-use plastic), flatten and mold it into a disk shape quickly and lightly (to keep it cold), wrap the parchment paper over the top of it like a little present, and put it in the fridge, tucking the edges underneath it.
6. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Don't rush this step.
7. Sprinkle flour on the counter. Remove the dough disk from the parchment paper and roll out the dough. The first trick is to roll the dough from the center of the disk toward the edges - always working from the original center-point and pushing the dough toward the edges. This is not bread dough and it's not a cookie. The goal is NOT to knead or completely blend the fat and flour; but rather, to leave little nuggets of fat in the pie crust so that when it bakes, it's light and flaky, so only roll as much as you absolutely have to. The second trick is to pinch together any splitting cracks that will appear near the edge of the pie crust. The third trick is to add a little bit of flour to the rolling pin or to the top of the pie crust to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin.
8. Hold an inverted pie dish over the rolled out dough to see if it has been rolled out enough. It should be enough to reach the edge of the pie dish plus some extra to go vertically up the sides of the dish once it's inside.
9. Using a dough scraper, scrape about 3 inches of the pie crust dough off the counter and fold it over the remaining crust. Repeat the process of scraping and folding three inches of the pie crust at a time until the dough is easy to pick up.
10. Transfer the dough to the pie dish and unfold it, but do not press it into the pie dish. Trim the edge with a butter knife. Put the pie crust in the dish back in the fridge until you're ready to fill it or prick it with a fork and bake it without a filling. Remind yourself that you're not a machine and it's rustic and totally okay to have some imperfect edges on your pie crust. At this point, you can choose to press a fork around the edges or press fingerprints around the edges for a more-finished crust, but I never do!
When you're comfortable with this pie crust, you can make delicious pies for your family and friends that are healthy-er. Just remember not to overdo the sweetener(s) when you're making the filling for the pie!
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