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My grandma's pie crust hack sounded lazy until I watched her do it at Thanksgiving
She keeps her butter in the freezer and grates it on a box grater right into the flour, and the crust came out flakier than mine ever does with my $40 pastry blender. Now I'm wondering if I've been overworking the dough this whole time, or if frozen butter is just the real trick. Anyone else grate their butter for pie dough, or is this just an old Wisconsin thing?
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lee_smith3611d ago
The "overworking the dough" part is probably the real thing nobody talks about. Cold butter helps, sure, but if you're mashing it into the flour with a pastry blender for five minutes you're basically melting it with your own hands and turning it into mush before it ever hits the oven. Grating frozen butter means you barely have to touch it, you just toss the little shreds through the flour a couple times and you're done. Those shreds also stay separate instead of getting smeared into the flour, so when they melt in the oven you get pockets of steam and that's where the flakes come from. My aunt does the same thing but she freezes the butter and then dusts the grater with flour so nothing sticks. Old Wisconsin thing or not, she's onto something.
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