whenever i go to the little bakery (flour and flower) in st joe and get a piece of pie, i go to culinary bliss for a bit while i eat the crust she makes. i’m not sure what she does, but goodness gracious is it delicious. it’s almost phyllo dough-esque. so i’ve been on a mission to make my pie dough better. last year i tried a couple new techniques, and today i tried something else.

lamination!

instead of making pea-sized pieces of fat/flour and then adding liquid, you just squash pieces of butter into the flour once, throw in some water, and after mixing it loosely with a spatula, throw it on the counter to start rolling/folding.

this was familiar. i do this with my squash galette.

so i tried it out.

1. i used some apple pie vodka as a replacement for some of the water
2. i used all butter. i thought about some lard, but since this is lamination, butter seemed like the better option

the recipe actually says “don’t give up on this. keep going.” for the rolling out. because i sure did feel like this was not going to work. i think i folded/rolled maybe 8 times. but it worked!

i threw that sucker in the fridge for about 6 hours, then it was time to roll out. (roll out.. roll out..)

wherever i learned the “chill dough before rolling” trick deserves a medal. rolling pie dough is so much easier when it’s cool.

i made some triple berry filling then had another hand at a lattice crust. then i kicked myself !!! i needed a control-Z for life.

a cold crust is critical for going in the oven. and the recipe i was using for the berry filling actually said “cool filling.”

and yet i didn’t think about it. i pulled my crust out of the freezer* and started dumping boiling berries into the crust.

ACK.

well, no time to lose. my oven was cranked to 500º**. my lattices were cut. i stuck those babies on and got the pie into the oven right quick.

i had some leftover pie filling berry goo, so i poured that in a jar, and once those little crusties on the bottom rack are done, i’m gonna have me a snack.

after we try the pie tomorrow, i’ll let you know if a laminated crust is worth the effort. (probably, based on how the galette crust is.)

*another trick: put your crust in the freeze while you’re preparing your filling.

**and then preheat your oven to 500º so the heat shocks the liquid in the crust into evaporating, creating a flaky, not soggy-bottom crust. (after you put the pie in, turn it down to the temp it should be at.)