ellencho
Jul 28th, 2005, 09:07 PM
Ok, so a while ago I promised to put up a tutorial on how to make a quiche. This part of quiche making isn't necessary, since pie crusts can be purchased in the supermarket, but I actually prefer the flavor and texture of a home made pie crust as opposed to a ready to bake pie crust.
This is what you'll need:
1.25 cups (6.25 ounces) of all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out your dough
1/2 tsp of salt
1 Tb of sugar
3 Tb veggie shortening, chilled in your freezer
4 Tb (or half a stick) of unsalted butter, also chilled and cut into cubes
4-5 Tb of ice water
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1541.jpg
Stick it in a food processor (minus the water) and pulse until you have a fine grained mixture. If you don't have a food processor this is ok, you can either use a pastry cutter or can use two knives in a bowl and just do your best to chop up your shortening and butter until it's been evenly distributed through the flour mixture. Use your hands if you need to.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1542.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1543.jpg
Turn out the mixture into a bowl (use a bowl bigger than I did) and add 4 Tbs of your ice water.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1544.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1545.jpg
Use a rubber spatula to incorporate the water into the flour/fat mixture, press the chunks into eachother. If your dough isn't holding together well enough, add another Tb or so of water.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1546.jpg
Once your dough comes together, go ahead and put it on a piece of saran wrap.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1547.jpg
Gather up the ends of the saran wrap to ball up your dough.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1548.jpg
Flatten out your dough ball, wrap it tightly in the plastic wrap, and stick it in your fridge for at least an hour, and up to 2 days.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1549.jpg
When you're ready, remove the dough from then fridge and let it sit out at room temp until it becomes malleable. Then unwrap it sprinkle it with flour, and place it atop a countertop sprinkled with flour.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1550.jpg
Begin rolling out the dough. Roll out from the center to the sides in one direction. Don't roll back and forth, that'll create an overly tough dough. All those yellow blobs you see in the dough are either butter or fat. That's a good thing. You want those blobs in there because that'll help create the flaky layers of your crust.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1551.jpg
Make sure that your dough is about an 2 inches larger than your pie plate. You have enough dough here to fill a 9 inch pie plate. It'll be about 1/8 inch thick.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1552.jpg
If you used enough flour, you should be able to slide your rolling pin underneath the pie dough, and hopefully it'll hold its shape long enough for you to transfer it over to your pie dish.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1553.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1554.jpg
Tuck in all your excess dough underneath itself, and try to make it even all around if you can. If you can't, no big whoop really.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1555.jpg
YOu can leave the pie crust as it is, but I think it's nice to crimp the dough against the rim of the pie dish. I think this helps it from not shrinking too much when you bake it too, because the excess dough hangs onto the rim while it bakes.
There are lots of ways to crimp your pie dough, some people will just take a fork and sort of press the pie dough down around the rim of the dish. I prefer to crimp it with three fingers. Here are some pics to show you how I did it. I pressed the knuckles of my index and middle fingers from one hand into the pie dough, and pressed with my index finger knuckle of my other hand between them. I then just continued around the entire pie dish.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1558.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1559.jpg
Here's what it looks like when it's done.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1561.jpg
Stick this in the fridge for 40 minutes, then into your freezer for 20 minutes. I'm not ready to make my quiche yet, so I'll just leave my crust in the fridge overnight, and when I'm ready to bake I'll stick it in the freezer then.
I'll continue this when I'm ready to bake my pie crust. In the meantime, feel free to ask anything you need.
This is what you'll need:
1.25 cups (6.25 ounces) of all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out your dough
1/2 tsp of salt
1 Tb of sugar
3 Tb veggie shortening, chilled in your freezer
4 Tb (or half a stick) of unsalted butter, also chilled and cut into cubes
4-5 Tb of ice water
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1541.jpg
Stick it in a food processor (minus the water) and pulse until you have a fine grained mixture. If you don't have a food processor this is ok, you can either use a pastry cutter or can use two knives in a bowl and just do your best to chop up your shortening and butter until it's been evenly distributed through the flour mixture. Use your hands if you need to.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1542.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1543.jpg
Turn out the mixture into a bowl (use a bowl bigger than I did) and add 4 Tbs of your ice water.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1544.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1545.jpg
Use a rubber spatula to incorporate the water into the flour/fat mixture, press the chunks into eachother. If your dough isn't holding together well enough, add another Tb or so of water.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1546.jpg
Once your dough comes together, go ahead and put it on a piece of saran wrap.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1547.jpg
Gather up the ends of the saran wrap to ball up your dough.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1548.jpg
Flatten out your dough ball, wrap it tightly in the plastic wrap, and stick it in your fridge for at least an hour, and up to 2 days.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1549.jpg
When you're ready, remove the dough from then fridge and let it sit out at room temp until it becomes malleable. Then unwrap it sprinkle it with flour, and place it atop a countertop sprinkled with flour.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1550.jpg
Begin rolling out the dough. Roll out from the center to the sides in one direction. Don't roll back and forth, that'll create an overly tough dough. All those yellow blobs you see in the dough are either butter or fat. That's a good thing. You want those blobs in there because that'll help create the flaky layers of your crust.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1551.jpg
Make sure that your dough is about an 2 inches larger than your pie plate. You have enough dough here to fill a 9 inch pie plate. It'll be about 1/8 inch thick.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1552.jpg
If you used enough flour, you should be able to slide your rolling pin underneath the pie dough, and hopefully it'll hold its shape long enough for you to transfer it over to your pie dish.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1553.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1554.jpg
Tuck in all your excess dough underneath itself, and try to make it even all around if you can. If you can't, no big whoop really.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1555.jpg
YOu can leave the pie crust as it is, but I think it's nice to crimp the dough against the rim of the pie dish. I think this helps it from not shrinking too much when you bake it too, because the excess dough hangs onto the rim while it bakes.
There are lots of ways to crimp your pie dough, some people will just take a fork and sort of press the pie dough down around the rim of the dish. I prefer to crimp it with three fingers. Here are some pics to show you how I did it. I pressed the knuckles of my index and middle fingers from one hand into the pie dough, and pressed with my index finger knuckle of my other hand between them. I then just continued around the entire pie dish.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1558.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1559.jpg
Here's what it looks like when it's done.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v250/ellencho/IMG_1561.jpg
Stick this in the fridge for 40 minutes, then into your freezer for 20 minutes. I'm not ready to make my quiche yet, so I'll just leave my crust in the fridge overnight, and when I'm ready to bake I'll stick it in the freezer then.
I'll continue this when I'm ready to bake my pie crust. In the meantime, feel free to ask anything you need.