Dear P.J., Your blog is always interesting and informative. I envy your job! With a 'lifetime' of experience, (70 plus years making pies), I have learned a few things on my own, as well as am a graduate home economist from a top ten university with experimental foods emphasis. This includes teaching, coaching food demonstrators, and much more. I think the crust defines a pie and I love to make flaky crusts. My secret is to mix the ingredients as 'lightly' as possible, always cutting the shortening of choice into the flour, leaving chunks about the size of big peas. Then I toss the flour/shortening with ice water and gather it up, sometimes dumping it onto a huge piece of plastic wrap and gathering the corners, while squeezing to compress it into a ball. (I make lots of pastry dough at a time and use a huge bowl and commercial plastic wrap.) I cut out what I perceive to be the amount I need for a two-crust pie, divide it in half and then very lightly 'round' it up on the sides, pat down on the top--often whacking it flat with my rolling pen. Then I take my bench Knife and cut the flattened ball into four pieces and stack them, then press them down and round up the edges. Sometimes I do this again. (This is making layers and layers of flakes). I am careful not to work the dough for I do not wish to develop gluten strands. After placing the bottom crust into the pie plate, I add the filling and very lightly moisten the edge/rim of the crust so as to 'glue' the top crust tight. I roll out and place the top crust on, trim to even if needed and tuck it under the bottom crust, lightly pat the two together so as to make a tight seal, and then crimp with my thumb and pointer finger with a little twist to make a lovely edge. If I am making a fruit pie, I lightly brush the top with milk or light cream, dust it with sugar and CUT VENTS into the top crust--sometimes in a design and sometimes randomly. I then turn my stove oven on to 375 degrees F. and place the pie in my microwave on high for 15 minutes. Be sure to use a Pyrex or microwavable pie plate--NOT METAL. I watch it as it microwaves, for sometimes it can close the vents and cause a huge bubble of crust and lift the crust. If it starts to do this, I just stop it and use my knife to re-cut the vents or make extra ones. This process causes the butter or shortening to melt quickly with the water makes steam which causes the dough to create wonderful flakes. After 15 minutes, I place it into the oven and bake it for about 20-25 minutes for a perfectly browned pie with more flakes than you could ever count. I THINK THIS METHOD ONLY WORKS FOR FRUIT PIES, NOT CREAM OR CUSTARD PIES. As for apples, this is my favorite way to make an apple pie, for as we all know and has been discussed in above comments, there is a wide variation in apples and how they cook up. I find that hard apples soften beautifully with this method, and we never have to chew a hard, lumpy, more raw than cooked apple, no matter what variety one uses. The difference is in the taste of the apple and no one has ever refused or fussed about that in my pies. They are devoured and never seem to languish on the shelf, although I have my favorite apples. I use a flour/shortening/salt/water crust as well as flour/shortening/sugar/salt/vinegar/egg/sugar, (sometimes called a tea- crust). My daughters and granddaughters make awesome pies using this method. I hope this inspires a little experimentation! P.S. The scraps make excellent pies,too, and never seem to turn into pie-crust cookies! And one last thing: Have you ever wondered what gluten looks like? To find out, take a small amount of flour and mix with water to make a dough ball. Then take that ball and hold it under a faucet of cold water and rinse the starch out until the water runs clear. What remains is the gluten. You can put it on a pie plate and bake it just for fun to see it transform. It is NOT palatable! I always describe it to my students as the "bones of the bread".

• Reply