But in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and all things pie, I have a question for you: do you make your own pie crust? if so, are you Team Crisco or Team butter?
Growing up, my mother always used Crisco. So I've always used Crisco. Shocking, I know. I'm not a super huge fan of pie crust anyway, so it hasn't really been that important to me.
A few weeks ago, we had a Super Saturday at church which was basically an excuse to visit, get our craft on, and eat. Part of that included a pie pot luck. I took a pecan pie and coconut cream pie using the Crisco pie dough recipe.
A super cute girl brought a homemade apple pie that was absolutely magazine quality. She had leaf cutouts in the crust and then had placed the leaves around the edges. So cute. The crust was absolutely perfect. Tiffany ate it and said it was tasty and flaky. Two important qualities of a pie crust. When asked for the recipe, she said she'd used the one on Williams-Sonoma.com. Of course, I had to check it out. Lo and behold, it used only butter. No Crisco at all. I was surprised that the all-butter recipe didn't get dark. So I decided to try it out.
I made a cherry pie Sunday for an old friend of mine using the Willams-Sonoma recipe. I have to admit, I was more than a little leary, but it turned out pretty darn good. At least it looked good. (I hope it tasted good.)
Since the cherry turned out pretty, well, pretty, I decided to use the recipe again to make a pecan pie for work. Wanna see it?
Doesn't that just make your mouth water? I have to say, it WAS good. The crust was flaky and pretty good. More importantly, I thought it was prettier that the last pecan pie. So, I made two more tonight. And a pumpkin one. And two dozen pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes. Somebody stop me!
But seriously, I wanna know. Crisco? or butter? or Pet Ritz?
Butter. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing in the world better than real butter.
ReplyDeleteMMMMMM Good.
What about the Pillsbury one's in the refrigerated section of the grocery store?
ReplyDeleteI use butter flavored crisco :)
ReplyDeleteApril is the QUEEN of pie -- she tells me the secret for flaky crusts is seriously chilling the dough. So far, she's convinced me because I'm NOT good at rolling out the pies, but my pies are always really flakey. (Maybe it's just Eric's influence though?)
I used real butter and water instead of the Crisco/milk recipe. I agree that chilling it is essential. The Williams-Sonoma website said that leaving little chunks of butter in the dough would make it flaky, too. I mixed it completely. I just ate the pecan pie and umm, umm was it good!
ReplyDeletebig surprise, I've really been pleased with Pioneer Woman's pie crust.
ReplyDeletehttp://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/12/p-p-p-pie_crust_and_its_p-p-p-perfect/