Learning 2 Bake from Scratch

Crust vs Crust

This one doesn’t get a number because it’s analysis, not baking. I posted my pie crust recipe in the Chess Pie post. The “new” recipe is from The Four & Twenty Blackbird’s Pie Book, which is a present from the crochet group.

Considering that they are a well-known bakery, it seems unlikely that the recipe is as bad as my results would imply. They’re in Brooklyn. I’m in South Dakota. Altitude and humidity drastically differ, among other things. This post is to compare the two recipes to see if anything jumps out. Both are for a bottom crust, only.

Mine	Theirs	ingredient
160 g	200 g	flour
2 tsp	1 1/2 tsp	sugar
2/3 tsp	1/2 tsp	salt
150 g (11 Tbl)	115 g (8 Tbl)	butter
46 g	120 g	water
1 tsp	2 Tbl	acid

Mine calls for pastry flour, but I use all-purpose often enough, which is what theirs calls for. My acid is lemon juice; theirs is cider vinegar. Mine is definitely less dough, which results in a thinner crust. Given the buttery mess it made in the oven, I’m surprised to see that theirs has significantly less butter. Let’s do some ratios:

First, I get to weigh 1 tsp and 2 Tbl of water, under the assumption that difference between water, lemon juice, and cider vinegar is negligible. 1 tsp of water weighs 4.1 grams. 1 Tbl of water weighs 13.8 grams. That, of course, doesn’t work since 3x1tsp=1Tbl, but 3×4.1=12.3, not 13.8. I’m going with 4 and 14, since the measurement was done the way I would measure it when making them (i.e. filling the measuring spoon). If the measuring spoons are off or I’m not properly meniscus-ing them, the same error would occur when mixing.

Flour/liquid. Mine: 160/(46+4)=3.2. Theirs: 200/(120+2*14)=1.3.
Flour/butter. Mine: 160/150=1.1. Theirs: 200/115=1.7

Those are not small differences.

Teh Intertubes have conflicting information (imagine that!) about lemon juice vs vinegar. Chatelaine Kitchen discusses lemon juice vs white vinegar (and their ricotta recipe made the “try that” list). ThoughtCo deems them mostly equal with lemons having greater variation, which makes sense. Quora descends into bickering without resolving the issue. Why is there acid in pie crust, at all? There is no leavening agent for it to interact with.

For the coconut cream pie, I let the dough sit in the refrigerator for 48 hours. When I rolled it out, it was almost soggy. When blind baking, butter bubbled everywhere and caramelized by the time the crust browned. This leads me to think that the flour could not absorb any of the butter because it was full of water. The dough had a noticeable cider tang to it. Yes, I taste the raw dough.

I have made numerous notes that I think the water in my recipe is a bit scant. I usually add more (unmeasured based on dough consistency). I think another tablespoon might be a good permanent change to that recipe – and 60 g is easier to remember (esp with 160g flour) than 46. It’s tempting to cut back on the butter, too. My recipe, too, is a bit messy on the oven while blind-baking. A 1.5 ratio with 160g flour would be 106g butter, which is about 1 Tbl (~14g) less than a stick. 115g of butter would be a 1.4 ratio, and “one stick” is an easy amount to remember. So, next time:

160 g AP flour
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
115 g butter
60 g water
1 tsp lemon juice

I happen to have a stick of Kerry Gold Herb Butter, which I bought by accident. That might make a yummy crust for pot pies…