Rose Levy Beranbaum: My Favorite Piecrust
That Has Stood the Test of Time for Three Decades
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
I have made a few updates to it since my favorite piecrust appeared in The Pie and Pastry Bible (now in its 12th printing), and I have several new tips to share. I have many pie and tart recipes in the book, but the one I turn to as my standard is the Flaky Cream Cheese and Butter Pie Crust. Of course, for pies or tarts that require refrigeration, I prefer the crumb or cookie (a.k.a. pâte sucrée) because it stays tender when cold.
I created this crust because I loved the flavor of the original 1-2-3 (equal parts cream cheese, butter, and flour) crust, perfect for mini tartlets but far too tender and crumbly for larger tarts and pies. By adding water, it strengthened the flour enough to be flaky but was a bit tough, so I then replaced it with heavy cream, which gave it the perfect texture. Then I added vinegar to relax the dough for rolling, which made it possible to transfer lattice strips without tearing. Finally, I added nonaluminum calcium phosphate-based baking powder such as Rumford so it would create tenderness by rising slightly while baking.
The type of flour plays a significant role in the quality of the crust. For years, I only used pastry flour, but because it is not readily available in supermarkets, I started experimenting with all-purpose flour. To my amazement, I discovered that if I added 1 tablespoon/12.5 grams of sugar to either bleached or unbleached all-purpose flour, it had the exact same tenderness as pastry flour and was excellent for a single-crust pie! Because double-crust pies take longer to bake, the slightly higher protein content made it brown faster, so it needed to be tented partway through baking.
I advise refrigerating the crust for 45 minutes before rolling so it is chilled enough but also soft enough to roll without breaking. When lining the pie plate or tart pan, ease it in without stretching to avoid shrinking. And to ensure a crisp crust for a single crust, it is ideal to freeze it overnight and blind-bake it by lining it with parchment and adding pie weights. It’s easy to make your own foil ring to protect the rim and best to add it right from the beginning of baking because it will still brown beneath the foil.
Although I’m known for cakes, I love pies and tarts just as much, and my favorites are fruit filling for their marriage of crisp crust and juicy fruit, and sometimes even a layer of pastry cream. One of my proudest accomplishments is employing the art of reduction for the fruit. I even created Rose’s Reduction Spatula, produced by the wonderful, precision-oriented company ThermoWorks. It has little markings that enable you to determine how much you’ve reduced the liquid. Allowing the fruit to macerate with sugar causes it to release a lot of liquid. By reducing this liquid, the fruit requires far less starch thickener, resulting in a purer flavor and better texture.
You can find my favorite piecrust recipe on my blog at realbakingwithrose.com.
Find Rose on Instagram at @realbakingwithrose and at realbakingwithrose.com.
Find Rose’s Reduction Spatula here.
The post Rose Levy Beranbaum: My Favorite Piecrust first appeared on Bake from Scratch.