THERE’S BEEN A PIE RENAISSANCE. Not so long ago, a homemade crust was a sign of early onset insanity—or of too much time on your hands (often the same thing). Then mavens like Allison Kave rekindled the craft. Now only the brave admit to premade crusts.
We love rolling them out! Listen, when two men are joined in one career, it’s nice to find something testosterone-free. There’s a Zen quiet about pies. Sure, some pastry chefs may try to turn them into tattooed free-for-alls. But it’s really about the gentle swoosh and click of floured hands and a rolling pin, the peace of a warm kitchen.
Pies and ice creams might seem like a natural combo, but it ain’t necessarily so. While cream, meringue, and ice-box pies would be too cloying with a scoop of ice cream, many others are not calibrated to match up. The standard strawberry-rhubarb pie is too darn sweet. You know you’re in trouble when the vanilla ice cream feels like the savory bit.
As you’ll see, an à la mode pairing needs a balance between its partners. Many herbal notes in a pie prove a bad match (but strangely, not the same ones in an ice cream). Bitterness among the undertones works in your favor (hello, caramel and chocolate). Sour notes need to be ramped up; overall sweetness, toned down (unless you mean to go over the top).
You’ll find lots of classic American pies here, all with a twist in the flavors to better match the frozen desserts: bourbon with peaches, vanilla with rhubarb, or bacon with walnuts. You’ll also find a handful of fancier creations, including one that can only be described as peanut brittle morphed into a tart. And we’ve got one old-fashioned treat, a slab pie—the biggest newton cookie you’ve ever seen.
Let’s clarify three items you’ll see in this section—not in every recipe, but time and again.
1 • INSTANT TAPIOCA. We don’t mean the giant pearls found in Asian bubble teas or the somewhat smaller pearls used to make the 1950s cafeteria pudding. Rather, we mean the ground tapioca (thus, “instant”) found in the baking aisle. It’s a time-worn pie ingredient, probably more familiar to your grandmother than to you: the dehydrated starch from the cassava root creates a richer, less gooey filling than flour alone and less jiggly than cornstarch. In most cases, we like a mix of instant tapioca and flour for a “spreadable” set.
2 • SOLID VEGETABLE SHORTENING. Most of our crusts are a combination of butter and shortening. The latter needn’t be loaded with trans fats. Look for expeller-pressed vegetable shortening, sold in sticks like butter, often in the dairy case. Skip any added, artificial flavorings; buy the plain stuff; and use it in your crusts as you would butter. Store it in the refrigerator.
3 • VINEGAR. We usually add a dash of acid to crusts for two reasons. One, we like the slight bump of sour it gives to the crust, a better foil to the sweet filling, especially since we’re often working with butter/shortening combo crusts. And two, we add it to help snap the glutens a bit and make the crust crisper. True, a quarter teaspoon of cider vinegar is not going to stop that mass of gluten in its tracks. But in butter/shortening combo crusts, it does raise the pH just a tad and so prevents some—certainly not all—of the glutens from turning doughy.
We’ll have plenty of tips in the individual recipes where they’ll be most helpful. But here are the basic instructions for rolling out pie and tart crusts.
1 • START WITH A GLASS PIE PLATE. Yes, the hipster kids love the old metal plates. But you’ll end up with a crisper, browner crust in glass because there’s less insulation. If you must bake a pie crust in a metal pan, you may need to add 5 minutes or so to the baking time to get the filling bubbling—which means the fluted edge or the topping can begin to burn. Lay a piece of aluminum foil on top if you notice any scorching. By contrast, tarts are always baked in a metal pan with a removable bottom. Their crusts are generally thicker and cakier; they don’t need the extra zap of heat the glass plate provides.
2 • KEEP THE FAT COLD. The butter and even any expeller-pressed shortening should be right out of the fridge. Cold fat will hold its shape and not “melt” into the flour at room temperature. Cold fat will also yield tiny globs throughout the dough—which will then lead to more tender crusts with more flaky bits.
3 • WORK IN THE FAT WITH A PASTRY CUTTER OR A FORK. Press the fat through the tines and into the flour mixture, repeatedly cleaning off the cutter or the fork before going at it from different directions. The final mixture should look like coarse sand grains that have been coated in flour.
4 • ADD AS LITTLE LIQUID AS POSSIBLE. Start with the smallest amount stated; add more only as necessary. If you accidentally add too much water to a dough and it turns sticky, you can add a little extra flour. But be careful: the crust can become tough when the ratios fall apart.
5 • USE COLD WATER. It will keep the fat from melting so quickly in the dough.
6 • WORK ON WAX PAPER. It’s an old-guard pastry secret. Sprinkle some water droplets on your work surface to keep the wax paper from slipping around, then set a large sheet on top. Always dust it with flour unless otherwise directed.
7 • GATHER THE DOUGH INTO A BALL, SET IT ON THE WAX PAPER, PRESS IT INTO A DISK, AND DUST WITH FLOUR. To mitigate some of the stress on the glutens during rolling, gently press the pie crust dough into a flattened, round disk, 1 to 1½ inches thick. Unless told not to, sprinkle the disk with flour.
8 • ROLL A CRUST FROM THE MIDDLE OUT, NOT FROM SIDE TO SIDE. For an even thickness and better shape, set the rolling pin right in the center of the dough disk and push out to an edge; then turn the pin a bit, set it at the center again, and make another push to the edge, and so on, always working from the middle out, around and around the crust. Yes, you’ll make many more strokes. But you’ll end up with better texture and shape.
All pie and tart crusts have a bit of overhang once they’re in the pie plate.
9 • MEASURE ACCURATELY. Hold the pie plate over the crust occasionally to see what size you’ve got. Better yet, measure with a clean ruler. You want a little excess so you can shape it to the plate without worrying about perfection from the get-go. If you’re working with a tart pan, simply press the edge into the already fluted sides.
10 • PEEL UP THE WAX PAPER WITH THE CRUST ON IT, INVERT IT OVER THE PIE PLATE, AND SET IT DOWN INSIDE. Set it down into the plate, position it at the center, then gently peel off the wax paper, leaving the crust in the plate. Press it gently to conform to the plate’s or tart pan’s shape.
11 • FIX THE EDGE. You can trim off any overhang with a small knife. Or you can make a thicker edge (some recipes require you to leave it very thick). In any case, do something about that unadorned edge.
• Press the tines of a fork all the way around the perimeter of the pie, making lots of little, parallel indentations on the lip.
• Or turn a flatware spoon upside down and press it around the crust, making little half-moons (extra points if you make two sets, one inside the other).
• Or do something fancier: take the thumb and forefinger of your nondominant hand and set these on the inside lip of the crust; push them out while pushing in-between them with the forefinger of your dominant hand (like putting an “I” inside a “U”). Work your way around the crust, making these indentations at the rim.
• Or go all out and roll the trimmed bits from the crust into long strands, then braid these like rope before pressing them onto the crust around the rim of the pie plate.
12 • FINALLY, ONLY COVER A BAKED PIE OR TART ONCE IT HAS COOLED TO ROOM TEMPERATURE. Steam is a crust’s natural enemy. That pie or tart can sit out for several hours before it needs to be covered. Don’t rush the process or you’ll end up with a gummy slice.
You’re now ready to make lots of pies and tarts to go with creamy, rich ice creams, gelati, and frozen custards. We’ll start basic and move to greater innovation. Peach, blueberry, apple-cranberry, rhubarb—they’re all here. But did someone mention Camembert in an ice cream or fresh fennel in a pie? Just you wait.
