My maternal grandmother, bless her, was what we would today call a neatnik. That is to say that her house from garage floors to basement corners was spotless, polished and fresh smelling. Grandma made a lot of pies. Being fastidious, no pie was going to be permitted to cook over and soil her oven; the inside still looked like new decades after it was installed. Her pies tended to be a little underfilled and just done. They looked flawless. So did her oven floor; missions accomplished.
Dad once expressed his love of Dutch apple, and she presented such a pie every week until her health forbade it. They were always delicious, with beautifully fluted crusts, even if a little short on filling and just done. I think he quickly reached a point of preferring cherry, raspberry, custard anything but another Dutch apple pie. But we ate them all up, and I miss them.
Giving you a pie dough recipe, not my grandmothers, which is lost, is probably a fools errand. There are whole books devoted to the subject, and every baker has a favorite they swear by. Im sure there are plenty of skilled pie bakers who will read my recipe and think that Im a ninny. I can only tell you that my long effort to find the best method led me to what I do, and that I always welcome suggestions and help from those with a better way, no matter what the dish.
Unsurprisingly, Julia Child led the way. I found one word in her instructions that fixed my usual mess of a crust: knead. I had been overly fearful of handling the dough, because such treatment will make it tough. This meant a dry, under-mixed, uneven business that required patching and didnt hold together, before or after baking. So the key seems to be to give it an ever-so-slight moment of gentle gathering and forming into a ball before rolling it out. Not kneading in the sense of bread dough, but make it look like a ball of dough before rolling, and then it will behave itself and go into the pie dish easily. This is a skill youll have to develop; expect a few chewy pies at first.
CUSTARD PIE
Makes one single-crust pie.
1 1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 stick cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening (by all means use lard if you wish)
1/4 cup cold water
It is important to keep everything cold and work quickly, or the fats will begin to melt, making everything sticky. Put the flour and salt in a bowl and cut the butter into it using a pastry blender until it looks like coarse meal. Do the same with the shortening. Add the water you may not need the full amount. Once incorporated, turn it out onto the counter and fold it onto itself a few times, forming a ball. Wrap it in plastic, and put it in the refrigerator to chill for two hours. It can then be rolled out on a floured board, marble slab or flour sack towel kept for the purpose. Experiment until you find the method you prefer. Roll it into a circle bigger than your pie plate. Roll the dough onto your rolling pin, hold it over the pie plate and unroll it again. Press it gently into the plate, and build up the edge with your fingers.
The filling this is said to be the recipe of first lady Grace Coolidge:
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Beat the eggs until frothy then beat in the remaining ingredients except for the cinnamon. Pour into the unbaked piecrust and top with the cinnamon.
Bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and bake 30 minutes more.
Cool and serve.
(Recipes from Baking With Julia and The First Ladies Cookbook.)
