Great pie dough is easy for some and a quest for others. Flour, salt, butter, water — how can it be so challenging? Sometimes, recipes call for one extra ingredient: a splash of vinegar in the cold water that brings the pie dough together.
What does that vinegar do? The most common answer — that it affects gluten development — isn't actually that useful. If you had a mass spectrometer at home, you could measure the teensy difference vinegar makes in the tensile strength of gluten strands in the dough, which in theory makes it a bit more tender.
But there are two much more important perks to using vinegar: it provides a little insurance against overworking the dough. And, that splash of vinegar will keep your dough from oxidizing and turning gray.
To watch the oxidation process play out, I made twobatches of ourAll-Butter Pie Crustand mixed 1 tablespoon of vinegar into the ice water of the second batch.
Here's the same recipe after three days. The water-only version has become noticeably grayer. It was also a bit more slack to work with when rolled out.
What happens if your dough is gray and oxidized, and you bake it anyway? Good news. It'll be fine. While the oxidized dough was a little floppier to work withand didn't hold the pattern of the pie top cutters, the look and flavor of the baked dough were pretty much the same.
In the end, if you prepped your dough without vinegar, forgot about it, andworry you'll have to start over, fear not. Use your gray dough and give it a little egg wash on top before baking.
Pie dough best practices
The biggest determining factor in the quality of your pie crust is the technique used to make it. Vinegar, buttermilk, lemon juice, and vodka all change the interaction of the liquid and gluten in the dough. But the difference between a dough with acid in it and one without (when made with the same technique) is infinitesimal. In other words,no ingredient can cure poor execution.
So remember the essential rules of pie baking:
Keep your fat cold, and leave half of it in larger chunks, bigger than you think they should be.
Addliquid, but not too much.
Fold the dough to bring it together, and don't be anxious if it's a little crumbly, as long as it feels damp.
This is where overworking is a risk; as long as the dough is mostly holding together, you don't need to spend a lot of time kneading it.
Chill in disks with round, smooth edges. If you do, you'll get smooth edges when you roll it out.
When it comes to pie dough, practice makes perfect. The most essential pastry ingredient is confidence. But if you're a busy baker and aren't sure when you'll be making the leap from dough to oven, a little splash of vinegar (or lemon juice) in your recipe is a good idea.
If you're a visual learner, check out the video tutorials in our Pie Baking Guide.
Our thanks to Anne Mientka for the photos in this post.
The acid in the apple cider vinegar tenderizes the dough by slowing the gluten production in the dough. This prevents it from getting tough and elastic like bread dough. Love me tender. If you've ever bitten into a slice of pie with a tough crust, you know the value in a tender, flaky pie crust.
The acidic properties of vinegar inhibit gluten, some will say. This theory proposes that once the water and flour are combined, gluten starts forming, causing the dough to grow tough. Adding an acid, the theory goes, stops the gluten in its tracks and rescues the crust from toughness.
Why do some pie crust recipes call for vinegar? Vinegar can affect the gluten development in dough. Gluten gives dough structure, but too much gluten development can make dough tough. Acid can hinder gluten development; so, a bit of vinegar (or lemon juice) can make pie dough slightly more tender.
1. Use Very Cold Butter or Fat. Butter, shortening, lard, or suet—whatever fat the recipe calls for should be well-chilled and cut into small pieces to start with for the flakiest crust in the end. The fat in a pie crust must maintain some of its integrity in the dough to make the crust truly flaky.
The key to standard pie crust is having pockets of fat surrounded by flour. But if that fat starts to melt and mixes with the flour, it can start to develop gluten, which can lead to a tough crust. To prevent this, keep everything as cold as possible.
In our experience, sugar can also make the pie dough so tender that it's hard to roll out and transfer to your pan without breaking. Egg: This makes the dough more pliable and easy to roll out.
Mixing baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid) causes a chemical reaction that produces a salt (sodium acetate) and water, as well as carbon dioxide gas. In this demonstration, baking soda is placed in a balloon that is attached to a flask holding vinegar.
Which rack you use in the oven can help ensure a crisp crust. Baking the pie on a lower rack will concentrate heat on the bottom of the pie and help the crust crisp.
As important as not overmixing is staying chilled, literally!! That means keeping all elements cold— your counter, ingredients, hands, heart (just kidding!). No, but seriously, cut up your butter into little cubes and chill them before you incorporate them into the flour.
To prevent the pie crust from puffing up too much while blind baking, prick the pie crust with a fork. Space the markings every inch around the crust to create air holes for the steam to escape. 4. Use pie weights.
But let's not underestimate the egg wash, a small but important step that gives the crust its shine. Lending countless baked goods (pie crust, pastries, breads, and more) a glistening golden shell, an egg wash also helps seal the dough, providing a protective barrier from the heat of the oven.
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