Esmeralda Stone

I made pie crust dough at six this morning. Not so I could make a pie that early, but because I like to refrigerate the dough for at least six hours before using it. It’s one of the things that makes it easier to roll out and handle.

“How do you make your pie crust?” you might be asking (or not). And it’s a fair question, because there are lots of variations when it comes to pie crust. Especially when it comes to the fat and the liquid. But as far as I’m aware, the basic requirements and ratios are standard: two cups flour, one cup fat, and one cup liquid. As mentioned above, it’s what you use for your fat and liquid that can make things interesting.

For my crust, I go with all purpose flour, all butter (I used to use butter and shortening, but pie crust was the only reason we had shortening in the house and we don’t make that many pies), and equal parts cold water, egg, and vodka for the liquid.

Putting everything together is fairly simple, too. Flour goes in the bowl. Probably a little salt. I’m making a savory pie today, so along with the salt, I added black pepper, white pepper, and garlic powder. I DO NOT recommend those options for a sweet pie. The cold butter gets sliced up and thrown in with the flour mixture and that gets mixed using a pastry blender until the butter is about the size of a pea. In a one-cup glass measuring cup, I add one-third cup cold water, one-third cup vodka (moonshine works beautifully if you can get any of the burns-the-hair-in-your-nose true stuff), and one large egg. Mix it in the measuring cup and add about half to your dry ingredients. Then mix your dough (I use my hands because I’m feeling for the correct stickiness).

The amount of liquid that actually goes in is hard to specify because sometimes, like this morning, I used almost all the liquid, but I’ve made dough where I’ve only used two-thirds. You’d think since the flour and fat amounts never change, your liquid amount would always be the same. But it’s that crazy magic of pie crust, I guess. I like a sticky dough because it’s sitting in the fridge for several hours, and I roll it out using flour, so the extra moisture keeps it from getting too dry during the rolling process.

So, there you go, a non-experts guide to making pie crust. But I’ve been making it for years and it comes out nice and flaky. And yes, you can expect to see one of my characters making pie crust at some point in the future.