Vodka Pie Crust

[bk2w]

Because I keep forgetting it:

Comments

[cyano]

Thanks!
I have added this to memories list!

[firimari]

'Mix Well' is misleading, you need to make sure there are still lumps of butter in the crust, even with the vodka shortcut.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/cooks-illustrated-foolproof-pie-dough-recipe.html

This is the food processor version. If you don't have one, I suggest freezing your butter sticks and using a large holed cheese grater

[bk2w]

That's thee recipe I started with, but I've actually had good results in mixing the first butter/flour combination completely.

[mg4h]

So, because I don't always know if I'm baking things right, I ask the following questions:

1. All-purpose flour?
2. When you say cold, how cold? Frozen butter, or just been in the fridge for a bit for the water and vodka?
3. Also, how large are the chunks you cut the butter up into?

I'm good at cooking, not so good at baking. Yet.

[bk2w]

1) Yeah, all-purpose flour should be fine.
2) The temperature actually doesn't seem to be all that important. From the fridge should be just fine.
3) Doesn't actually matter.

There are two goals in this recipe. First, by mixing part of the flour with the butter, you can mix it completely (i.e. no chucks after mixing). Then you add the remaining flour and briefly mix it to get an over-all mixture of some flour covered in butter, and some flour not covered by butter. This gives the flakey layer effect. Second, by using vodka in place of some of the water, we get a more workable dough without causing too much gluten formation.

I'll have to try Shelby's cheese-grater version at some point and compare the results.