Posted by: hilllin1
As an experienced cook and baker always eager to learn more, I really appreciate Gwen Schoen's helpful, careful, personal, reassuring, and complete demonstration of her piecrust-making technique. There is nothing like a live demonstration for such recipes. I also appreciate her thoughtfulness in doing so at holiday-time, when our (at least my) cooking anxiety is at its height. Piecrust was a mystery to me for years. I had awful results with every cookbook recipe I ever tried for piecrust, until finally I watched Jacques Pepin demonstrate his piecrust technique on his PBS show, about 25 years ago; finally he explained the whole thing, and piecrust has been a pleasure for me to make ever since. I believe that finally gaining confidence with piecrust is a turning point in a cook's life. There are few more-versatile or useful substances in one's cooking repertoire. Gwen includes here many very valuable tips and comments, gained clearly from much knowledge, and years of practice. There are just three comments I would add to her excellent tutorial. One, I doubt she really means to add a quarter cup of salt to a single crust --that's four tablespoons of salt, after all; perhaps she means a quarter teaspoon? I believe she just mis-spoke. Secondly, I add a bit of sugar to my piecrust, even if it is for a savory dish; about a teaspoon or two. And third, for me, mixing the flour (and salt and sugar) and shortening together with my fingertips has been for me the best way; I have used pastry cutters and two knives and two forks many times, but find that just pinching and rubbing the material between my fingertips and thumbs works best; it's quick, and makes it easy to tell when the mixture is ready for adding water. Finally, I'd say don't be afraid to add enough water to actually make a dough; just do as Gwen says, and add it a little at a time until you have a dough. Cookbook recipes always made me afraid to add much water, and I think that was one reason my piecrusts were so miserable, pre-Jacques-Pepin. Jacques also suggested letting the dough rest in the refrigerator for an hour before rolling it out, largely, he said, to let the gluten relax (so that you won't have "developed" the gluten by the small amount of kneading you've done), and also to let the shortening harden up a little to preserve its integrity, as Gwen talked about, when you roll it out, to maximize the crust's flaky-ness.Thanks also to Gwen for teaching me the word "blind" crust; I'd never heard that term before. Again, many cheers and thanks to Gwen Schoen for her friendly and expert advice in this video, from a grateful viewer.
on Jan 08, 2010 at 02:46 pm