Welcome to "Secrets of the Pie Lady"--an ongoing series full of pie making tips for those of you who bake your own pies, and those of you who would like to learn. I call them "secrets" because they are solutions to problems that I have figured out myself, when I could not find answers in any of my trusted cookbooks or elsewhere. I am surely not the only person in the world to have thought of these things, but your favorite cookbook probably won't mention them. More pie folklore than pie science, they are solutions that have worked for me and maybe they will work for you.
When it comes to making pies there really aren't any secret recipes or techniques. For instance, open any cookbook and you will find that cup for cup, ounce for ounce, the ingredients for basic pie dough are all pretty much the same. You will get different results by using shortening, versus butter, versus lard or oil; other variations may include adding sugar, egg, vinegar, or even baking powder. But the basic proportion of fat, to flour, to water is about the same in every recipe.
The same goes for technique. Every cookbook you refer to will offer its own detailed how-to instructions and pictures that go something like this--work the fat into the flour using finger tips, two knives, pastry blender, or food processor until it is evenly mixed in and the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal; add just enough ice water to moisten, and pat gently into a ball. Cookbooks also provide answers for many pie dough questions like which kind of fat makes the flakiest dough, why pie dough becomes tough when it is overworked, and what happens when too much water is added.
Even with so much information and so many recipes available to the home baker, pie making can be frustrating and disappointing. Unexplained things often seem to go wrong, and after many years of making pies I have had my share. But because I have baked hundreds and hundreds of them, I have also had plenty of opportunities to experiment with finding solutions. Which leads me to the very first pie lady secret--bake lots of pies!
Really! Create a special pie making corner in your kitchen, collect baking tools that you enjoy looking at and keep them set up; a wooden or marble dough board, a rolling pin that feels just right, a beautiful mixing bowl. Maybe you don't know what you need quite yet, but the point is that as you begin baking you will be so much more inclined to just "quick, mix up some pie dough" if you don't have to start by clearing a space on the counter, pulling out your mixing bowls from the back of the cupboard, locating your recipe somewhere in that box or drawer, and making a special trip to the grocery store to get flour. If you are baking regularly you will be more likely to always have the ingredients you need on hand.
My home kitchen is not set up for baking any more, so for these very reasons I prefer baking at the pie shop. All I have to do is put on my apron and start measuring ingredients. People have often asked, especially when I was doing all the baking for the pie shop myself, how I could possibly bake "that many pies?" The truth is when your kitchen is set up and you bake on a regular basis, it's a whole lot easier to bake a dozen pies than it is just one every six months or a year! So, there's the first pie lady secret--have a pie making corner set up in your kitchen where you can put together a pie at a moment's notice. That's how to coax yourself into making lots of pies; and baking lots of pies is how you get good at it!
-The Pie Lady
