I think the takeaway is the visible little bits of butter. That's the point behind chilling. The bits of butter release water, the steam of which pushes apart the flour, hence, flaky.

Congrats on the great pie!

I'm intrigued by the vodka in the pie crust...

Vodka reacts with wheat flour to make it more tender, especially whole wheat flour. I generally add a tablespoon of brandy to my pancake batter, and it has the same effect. After cooking, the alcohol is pretty much gone.

For the apple filling, I used 8 apples, 3/4 cup coconut sugar (similar to brown sugar), 2 Tbsp cornstarch, 2 Tbsp powdered pectin, 1-1/4 tsp cinnamon, 3/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp freshly ground mace. I had bought the mace a few months ago but never used it. I think it did add a bit of interest to the spice mixture, even in the small amount. It is noticeably different from nutmeg, although similar. It reminds me a bit of cardamom.

I remember buying a nutmeg grinder a few years ago, but I don't know what I did with it. I've been grinding nutmeg with my microplane zester, and I think it works better than the nutmeg grinder did.

The pastry decorations on top of the pie are from the trimmings I made from the lower crust. I love pie crust and don't like to waste it, which is why I put them on top. I did not trim the top crust and instead rolled it under with the bottom crust - therefore it came out a bit thick, but I was afraid the filling would bubble over while cooking, since I ended up with a huge heap of apple mixture in the center of the pie. The apples barely all fit, but this is how I generally make apple pie.

I had expected the apples to cook down and for the top crust to settle a bit, but instead it retained its dome shape with a large gap above the filling. When I noticed this, I pushed the top crust down a bit. Because the edge was so thick, all the fluting I made disappeared, and I think this is partly due to the large amount of grated butter.

That's pretty well what we would call "rough puff" pastry :-)

Lars, I’ve still not tried vodka in my pie crusts. A baker friend of mine says it adds needed moisture but creates less gluten than water and flour resulting in a flakier, more tender crust. One of these days I need to try it.

I agree with plllog…those visible bits of butter are a good thing.

"Vodka reacts with wheat flour to make it more tender, especially whole wheat flour."

I did not know that!

I'm not so sure that's true about tender, though limiting the gluten development sounds possible. In pie crust, I was under the impression that the vodka worked by evaporating faster than the water, giving two stages to the steam lift. I'm not completely sure of either of these, but that's what I've gathered.

Glad it came out well - I love piecrust too 🙂

I always make pâte brisée, and I learned awhile back that chunks of butter in my crusts (and biscuits) make for flakier results. I ignore when directions say to blend until it resembles cornmeal.

Lovely! This is how I would make rough puff https://casualepicure.com/rough-puff-pastry/#recipe

I don’t recall ever having seen egg in pie crust, but I’ve used vodka. Mostly now I use Stella Parks’ method, which is so flaky I’ve had it mistaken for puff pastry, and I’ve actually seen criticized for being more puff pastry than pie crust. But I love it.

https://www.seriouseats.com/pie-dough-troubleshooting

Anyway, glad your pie turned out to your liking - looks good!

I'll have to try Stella Parks' method. I watched her video and found her annoying, possibly because she reminds me of one of my nieces that I find annoying, but I'm still willing to give her method a try, since it is different and looks very easy. I used to make biscuits using a somewhat similar method, and those were very flaky with multiple layers.

I thought my pie looked ugly - at least until I cut it, but looks are not everything.

I'm also going to have to try a rough puff pastry - I had not heard of that before.

What I did learn from my accident was that it was definitely fixable, and I was unsure of that before.

Have used vodka in my pie crust for years. It makes the crust easier to work because it doesnt' develop the gluten like water does, and adds ac ertain "wheaty" flavor.

I can't imagine how anyone can have a "recipe" for the amount of sugar and thickener in an apple pie....as so much depends on the type of apples.

I grew up with 2 apple trees in the yard, early and later....and as soon as the early apples were about billiard bakk size we made pie. More sugar whgich acts like a liquid and a little more flour......then as they got bigger and riper...less sugar and less thickener. I made a crisp with Jonagold last week and they were very "un juicy" and I was glad I didn't add much thickener. Also very sweet, which i knew as I tasted them but still too sweet. I have some mackintosh this week!

“I always make pâte brisée…”

I’ve used Martha Stewart’s for years. Never fails.

I don’t have the recipe but my grandmother’s pie crust was superb. She made it with hot water and lard.

One thing I learned through error, was that adding a Tbs. or 2 of olive oil in addition to the required butter makes for a wonderfully tender and flaky result.

I’ve also had good results using 3/4 part butter/1/4 part shortening. I’ve got several disks of crust in the freezer right now for ”pie central” next week.

I did adjust the thickener based on the apples I had. My "recipe" called for 1-1/2 Tbsp of cornstarch (I never use flour as a thickener), but the apples were especially juicy, and so I increased it to 2 Tbsp. What I wrote above is how I made the pie this time - it was not meant to be a recipe to follow, or else I would have used a different text format. Adding the fruit pectin was just an experiment, and of course it did not hurt. I could have reduced the sugar a bit because the apples were pretty sweet, but it still turned out pretty much as I wanted it to.

I used Fiji apples because that's what I have in my backyard, but I might use something else if I were buying apples, which I never do. The recipe that I used called for dotting the apples with butter, and I forgot to do that as well. I think there was enough butter in the crust.

I have found Martha Stewart's pâte brisée to be tough, compared to other recipes. It is definitely easy, however. I make another pie crust that is 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, and one cup flour, for a single crust, and it is even easier. It requires a lot of pie weights if it is baked before filling because it would otherwise puff up and slide down the sides of the pie pan.

As I understand it (not an expert on the science, but read a lot), egg in pie crust is required for gluten free because even if you're not actively developing gluten in your dough, as has been implied, it will start developing once wet, and rolling out, especially if the dough is too could and less pliable, is basically kneading it a bit. And even if you don't develop the gluten, wheat is particularly sticky and makes good glue. Egg provides the protein and sticky to GF--or least handled wheat.

I love Stella Park's pinch the butter recipe. If I have time to play, that is.

Per my mother, I use Tapioca for thickener. It works really well (don't use too much!) and it isn't gritty.

But, Lars, my pies are always ugly. I just can't seem to be bothered making them pretty. :)'m not sure about the leaves, but the rolled edge and slits on yours are symmetrical and nice. I bought a book about pie art, which is a lovely thing to look at, but the secrets are to use a specific dough for sculpting and bake it separately, neither of which I want to do. But I did recently get a tine of teeny tiny shape cutters so i can up my slit game. :)

“I have found Martha Stewart's pâte brisée to be tough…”

Lars, I’ve not had that happen with her recipe, but I also know pie crust results can really vary. A friend of mine swears by the one she uses, and it just didn’t work for me.🤷‍♀️

I use Ina G’s buttery crostata crust recipe often but pretty much just for crostatas/galettes. These were some mini versions I made. I can’t even guess how many times I’ve made her Apple Crostata.

For most tarts I tend to use shortbread crusts.

People laugh at me when I say so, but the biggest differences in pie crusts same recipe that I've found are working temperature and the flour. Really really the flour. I currently use use flour that's a little stronger than bleached AP, and unbleached. It's much tastier than the AP I use for cookies but I have to be careful about how much it gets worked.. Soft pastry flour is annoying, but it has a reason for its existence--if you really want tender and shatter flaky, it's worth it.. I also use 100% whole wheat in an amended recipe that rolls out nicely and tastes great, but is best thin like a tart crust and isn't particularly flaky.

I also use shortbread crusts for tarts and bake them in a tart pan, but it's been a while since I've made one of these

I like them, but they are a bit too sweet for me, and one of these is too much for just two people. I won't make one unless I have others to share it with. I think that pie crusts are very individual and that what works for one person may not work for another person, due to how one actually interprets the recipe. I'm still trying new recipes/methods.

Plllog, I was not trying to make leaves (although I should have) - I was just throwing scraps of dough on top of the pie, so as not to waste leftover dough! I could have made them pretty if I had thought about it - I will next time.

Here is the ugliest pie I've ever made:

I used fresh cherries and not nearly enough thickener. It did taste good, however.

Lars, that tart is so pretty! I know what you mean regarding just two people. Your cherry pie would make my husband beyond happy!

I saw this somewhere online recently for pie crusts…maybe Wms. Sonoma. IDK…maybe okay if the shapes are well defined as shown, and the dough releases easily from the mold.

Chloebud, I have a rope mold similar to that. Making the rope work in a circle takes some skill gtting it to stay, evenly, but the mold works really well.

Lars, if they weren't supposed to be leaves, they came out really pretty for scraps! Lovely tart. I get over ambitious with that kind of thing, wanting quantity of fruit over beauty, and then they get wonky. But prettier than my ugly pies. Much uglier than your ugly pies. But yummy!

I have a "French recipe" for tart crust which is perfect. It's probably a sablée, but I know dough by how I use it rather than name, and the words aren't well fixed in my mind. The recipe I have rolls out really thin (I prefer very thin crusts for everything) and doesn't crack. I like making really big tarts best, but as Lars indicated, first you have to have enough people to feed it to. Peach on frangipani is my favorite and freezes well, so I'll make a big one, serve the better part of half, and freeze two quarters in flat containers.

Pretty sure I posted this before, but I’ve always admired this top crust from Martha S. Still haven’t attempted one. Seems it could shatter even with great care.🥴

I use my great-grandmother's pie crust. I made a pie and took it to a restaurant owner who is our friend. He cut it and gave a piece to a customer. She ate it and then demanded to know who made the pie. I held up my hand, and she said, this is a German pastry crust. It's wonderful! I was pleased to hear this because my great-grandmother was of German descent.

I like my crusts a little on the thick side, which might be why some recipes work better for me than others. The cottage cheese crust comes out the flakiest, but it also has a tendency to puff up when baking. I sometimes bake just the crust in rectangular strips and put cinnamon sugar on them before baking. They resemble a Mexican pastry when baked that way, and would be coffee, if I drank that.

That M.S. lattice looks more like decoration than food, and I cannot imagine that it would cut well in pieces, but perhaps it would. It looks like it should be baked on a pizza screen - I have an 11" one that would work for that. I'm intrigued by the pie crust molds but wonder how practical they are. I would probably end up using them for chocolate, especially if I got a silicon version.

I was going to say that I don't decorate my food much, but then I looked at my kiwi tart and decided that perhaps that would not be true. I don't think that tart was decorated, but someone else might. I just arranged the fruit the way I thought was practical for serving - except for the raspberry in the center - that was the only decoration.

I used to make my German grandmother's pie crust recipe when I was a child, and it was a basic shortening, butter, pastry flour, salt, sugar recipe using chilled ingredients. I remember having to be patient as a child for the pie dough to chill, but I was an extremely patient child, and I never took shortcuts, unlike my older sister, who always took every shortcut possible.

I think my pâte brisée recipe is from Jacques Pépin. It's written in the notes section of one of my old cookbooks. I know many recipes call for some shortening in addition to the butter, but I've always used just butter until I stumbled upon the olive oil - another happy accident.

This is how that first time came out - it was a top crust only, and it didn't hold its shape in baking as well as the usual only butter ones do, but man - it was perfection 😋

Before cutting - the apples were freshly picked and super juicy, as you can see:

And I like to use minute tapioca in juicy fruit pies - 2 Tbs is the recommended amount, sprinkled in the bottom before adding the fruit.

P.S. My proportions are 1 1/4 c. flour, 8 Tbs/1/2 c./1 stick salted butter, 3 - 4 Tbs ice cold water, and I sometimes add a pinch of allspice. Adding a Tbs or 2 of olive oil is optional.

P.P.S. I use one of these and try to leave some pea sized lumps of butter

Carol, the day I was introduced to FP pie crust is the day my similar pastry blender was abandoned in the bottom of the drawer. Your dough may be better than mine, but done pie is so much better than procrastination pie!

Chloebud, according to my pie art book, the specific sculpting dough and extra thickness is what makes these things work, as well as baking separately. If you slide a thin metal pizza peel or open sided baking sheet under it moving it shouldn't be too bad. Just steady hands to center it correctly.

Lars, I agree with your first thought. Your tart is pretty not decorated. Decorations are extra. A pine tree with its pinecones is pretty. A pine tree with popcorn strings is decorated. A pine tree with pinecones wired on is kind of sad but decorated. A fruit tart that looks pretty because of the arrangement of the fruit is pretty. A fruit tart with birds and flowers made of fruit leather (or carved fresh apple) on top is decorated.

I used to do all my pastry in my Cuisinart, but it makes it too fine. The pastry blender gives me the coarse texture I prefer - and it is a heck of a lot simpler to wash. I figure that if I add in the washing up, my pastry blender actually saves some time.

But that's if I'm only doing 1 or 2 crusts or 1 batch of biscuits. When I'm doing a large batch - like multiple crusts at a time - I will use the processor.

If I'm just doing one crust or when wash water is scarce, I use Stella's recipe where you put the frozen butter cubelets in the bowl of flour and pinch them like popping bubble wrap. It's a very nice, flaky dough, and if you don't have a lot other things to do, it's fun. And it's an easy thing for little kids to do (it's going in the oven, it's all right, it's going in the oven...) I think rolling and handling my FP recipes is easier, but I could try the method with those and see how it goes.

I’ve used various pie crust recipes over the years but now almost exclusively use a similar recipe to what the OP youtube video by ATK decribes, where 2/3 of the flour is mixed in a food processor with 2 sticks of butter until a paste forms - yes, a paste! Not pea sized chunks, not cornmeal, a paste. Then the rest of the flour is pulsed in, frozen butter shards are added, and then ice water is mixed in by hand.

I think Kenji from Serious Eats is the one who initially developed the technique, which he describes at the link below with his own recipe. It’s a great, easy recipe!

https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-pie-dough-recipe

All your pies look very good Lars, even the one you called ” the ugliest pie I ever made” I thought the trellis pastry worked out very well. I’ve tried to do this and it is definitely harder to do than it looks. All that folding back and threading through.

I also have used many pie pastry recipes over the years. Now for pastry for say a small quiche, I just wing it. Plain flour in the bowl, some cold salted butter that looks enough and small amount of icey water. I rub in by hand which I find relaxing and can judge leaving some larger bits of butter. I add as little water as possible and knead as little as possible, just until it comes together.

Then comes a break with tradition as I roll out now and put it into the pie dish and place the whole lot into the fridge to rest and firm up. I do this as I have mild arthritus in my shoulders and I find pushing a rollingpin through cold pastry a little hard.

Usually seems to work out flakey and tender.

One other thing I do is always cut out an outer circle of foil and place around the edge when either pre baking a shell or whole baking . Too many hard edge crusts in the past not to take this extra step.

“One other thing I do is always cut out an outer circle of foil and place around the edge…”

neely, I’ve done that, too. I also have this shield that can work nicely for 9-inch pies.

chloebud that shield looks ideal and looks like my foil shields.

I have similar shields made out of silicone which I like better than foil, but I still use foil on my odd sized dishes.