Finally Perfecting the Elusive Flaky Pie Crust

The beginning of July marks the most oppressive hot and sticky part of the year in the DC metropolitan area.  Most people hole up in their air-conditioned houses or head out to the beach or to Harpers Ferry for tubing.  Me?  I went out during the hottest part of the day to pick berries at Larriland Farms about 40 miles outside DC in Maryland.  I love "pick your own" berry farms, mostly because you can eat as much fruit as you want and pick a ton of berries for a fraction of expensive store prices.  A few tips when you head out:

1. Always check the farm's website or call before you go to see what is available.
2. Ask the staff members when you arrive what is good picking.  For example, we started off to the black raspberry patch only to find very scattered picking.  So after picking about half a pint, we asked which raspberries were the least picked over and we were sent off to the purple raspberry field.
3. We were told by the cashier at the purple raspberry field to pick low and inside the bush for best yields.  And low and behold, so long as you didn't care about getting a few scratches, it was the motherload. 
4. Laugh quietly at the obvious newbies trying to cherry pick and who refused to get down on the ground and really dig in.  Their reward for not wanting to get dirty was  five or six berries rolling around in their pails and obvious looks of disappointment.

Anyway, I ended up picking more than FIVE POUNDS of purple raspberries for FIFTEEN BUCKS!  I have several short rants.  Chain grocery stores will never carry purple raspberries.  I don't think I've ever seen Whole Foods carry purple raspberries.  All you see are blackberries and red raspberries, and while they might be organic, they are rarely local and never have that taste of sunshine you get from a fresh picked berry.  The fact of the matter is that berries are fragile.  They don't travel well.  They don't stand up to heat.  You will never get anything as pretty as a fresh picked berry in the grocery store.  In addition to that, berry picking is a fairly time consuming process.  A tiny half pint container costs $4.  Do the math. 

Okay, this weekend got a little excessive...some produce from farmers stands also happened to accidentally fall into the car.  My favorite farm stand is on Lee Highway out near Warrenton, VA just down the street from the Wegman's... they always have a great variety and the owner is always ready with samples.  He also chills samples of his melons and has a very nice Latino guy on hand to serve you whatever you'd like to try.

So what do you do with all this fruit other than make preserves, can in a simple syrup, freeze or dry them?  I make a nearly perfect Pecan Peach Galette to take to the 4th of July BBQ at Boy's friend's house.  This recipe is adapted from an Alice Waters recipe, and not nearly as pretty.  A galette is basically a fancy way of saying that its a free form pie that doesn't require a pie tin.  I like to think of my lack of fancy crimping on the edges as rustic.

I have always been scared of doing my own pie crusts.  Mostly because I was used to mediocre pie crusts and who wants a mediocre pie crust?  I had never really tasted epically delicious pie crusts before.  My mom made her own crusts, and they were okay, but not epically delicious.  I ended up preferring crushed nut pie crusts, or graham cracker pie crusts to the standard pastry over the years.  But I was determined to at least give it a go, the right way.  And guess what?  When you add lots of butter, keep the pastry at the right temperature, and don't overmix, you get a perfect flaky buttery epically delicious pie crust!

The hardest part about making crust is keeping everything cold and avoid overworking the dough.  Basically, you don't want the butter to melt and you don't want to develop the gluten in the flour.  I mixed about 1 cup of all purpose flour, 1/2 tsp sugar, and 1/8 tsp salt in a tupperware container, shook it up, then stuck it in the freezer.  In a separate tupperware, I stuck 6 TBSP butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces, and then put that into the freezer for about 30 minutes.

Then I plopped it all into a shallow bowl, tossed lightly, and then cut the butter as finely as I could, covering all the tiny butter bits with flour.  I know I could have used a blender for this job, but I was exhausted from having climbed a mountain earlier and I was at Boy's house, and didn't know where the blender was.  He was blissfully sleeping and so I figured I could do it old school with two sharp knives.  It was supposed to resemble coarse cornmeal, but mine was decidedly lumpier for lack of patience.  I stuck the shallow bowl back in the freezer while I made some ice water.  Then I slowly dribbled about 4 TBSP ice cold water into the dough and used a spatula to pull it all together.  I ended up having to use extra water, and then figured out that I had added just a bit too much.
 
So I patted it into a disc, stuck it in the fridge, and made sure that I over floured my surface to account for the extra water.  After about 30 minutes, I took the dough out, threw some extra flour on top, and then rolled it out to about 1/8" thick.  I then rolled the dough up on my rolling pin, and laid it out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and stuck it back in the fridge for 30 minutes. 
 
Onto preparing your oven... rack placement was a bit of an issue for me.  I was told putting the galette in the bottom third of the oven would yield the best result, but I ended up kinda freaking out because the bottom seemed to be cooking too fast, so I ended up having to move my galette to the top rack and then finish it off with the broiler.  When I do this again, I might do the same thing, have one low and one high rack and then switch the galette in the middle.  Because the bottom should cook well and quickly in the beginning to avoid the icky squishy pie crust bottom.  Long story short, have a low rack and a high rack and then preheat your oven to 400.
 
Pie assembly is the easiest part.  The secret to non-soggy crust is to have some sort of delicious absorptive matter between the crust and the fruit to act as a buffer while the crust cooks.  This time, I used about 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans mixed with 1 TBSP sugar, and 2 TBSP flour with about 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg.  Then I layered sliced peaches from the farm stand, topped with another sprinkling of sugar and some chopped nuts, and then carefully pulled the crust sides up over the fruit.  You just need to get enough of the crust over the fruit so it will keep it shape.  Now, a pretty Alice Waters galette would probably be beautifully crimped with uneven edges pinched off.  I am not Alice Waters.  I like rustic homestyle baking and think that crimping off uneven edges wastes perfectly good crust.  To finish it off before baking, brush some melted butter and sprinkle additional sugar on the crust.
 

 

Bake for about 45 - 50 minutes.  Keep an eye on it.  My peach juice kinda exploded all over and drooled down, so I ended up mopping it up so it wouldn't burn on the pan.  Remove immediately from pan onto a rack to cool.  This was so pretty and Boy and I were so tired, that we contemplated skipping the 4th of July BBQ and just eating the galette at his place with a couple of beers.  We exercised an extraordinary amount of restraint, but then demolished half the thing at the BBQ.