If you have problems
with sticky or cracked dough, it may in part be because of a few things
happening while mixing the ingredients and during rolling. Here are
few tips that will give you perfect pie crusts every time.
Think Cold: Keep everything connected with pie dough well
chilled. Dough becomes sticky when it is too warm. The tendency
is to throw more flour on the countertop or to add more flour to
the dough, which always results in a tough crust and problems with
rolling it out.
The Ingredients: Shortening (called butter here), a key ingredient,
acts as a spacer
between the gluten strands in the flour and will produce a flaky crust only
if it has not melted before you put it in a hot oven.
For very flaky pastry, chill the fat 15 to 20 minutes in the freezer before
mixing. Make sure the water you use is ice-cold; some people even freeze the
flour for 15 to 20 minutes as well. Cut your well-chilled butter into small
pieces and quickly distribute it through the flour and dry ingredients. Use
a fork to toss the flour mixture while adding the MINIMUM of cold water. Work
quickly or the shortening will become soft and sticky, which will result in
a flavorless tough crust.
After mixing and before forming into a disk shape, the perfect pie crust dough
pieces should look crumbly and dry -- you may not have added all
of the water; it's okay. A good test to see whether your dough is
ready to be formed into a disk is to pinch a few pieces together
and see if they stick together without dry cracks.
If your dough is too sticky, because the fat has warmed too much, place it
back in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes, and then resume. If it is still sticky,
add more flour a little bit at a time and work it quickly into the dough pieces.
Do the pinch test. Form a disc shape as a last step.
If your dough is too dry, the pieces will not stick together and it will crack
during rolling. Sprinkle drops of cold ice water on the dry, shaggy crust ingredients
and mix quickly again. Redo the test. Then form a disc (not a ball).
Wrap the dough in waxed paper; plastic wrap makes the outside of the dough
sticky.
Remember, a perfect pie crust dough looks crumbly, and the pieces stick together
when pressed between your fingertips. If the dough is too dry and formed into
a ball or disk too early, it will crack during rolling. If you have added too
much water or it has not chilled sufficiently, it will be sticky when you are
trying to roll it out.
When preparing the dough before rolling, make sure it has properly chilled
in the coldest part of the refrigerator (the center of a shelf) for 1 to 24
hours, or else the dough will become sticky when you roll it out. Remove the
dough for 10-20 minutes before rolling; do not let it get too warm. When the
dough is too cold, it will crack and break up during rolling. Let it rest a
few minutes to warm up, patch it and resume rolling.
Rolling: Flatten the well-chilled disk by beating it with a rolling
pin on a lightly floured board. Always roll from the center out
away from you to the opposite edge. Stop the rolling pin as it nears
the edges. Roll again towards the center. Move the dough away from
you, and sparingly dust the spot with flour. Turn the dough about
30 degrees and roll again. Repeat until you get the right size and
thickness. Or roll the flattened disk between two pieces of waxed
paper.
