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by Julianna Shubinski

In the summer of 2009, I went on a pie-baking binge. On average, I cranked out 10 pies a week for three hot, sweaty months in an un-air-conditioned kitchen with a smaller-than-average oven. Mostly it was fruit pies: apple, blueberry, peach, cherry, and combinations thereof. There were a few unsuccessful attempts at chocolate and lemon cream pies, and one tooth-achingly sweet buttermilk pie. All of this effort ended up being sold to inebriated patrons at a local bar that also featured the bar-b-q of my friend Trainwreck Washington. I have to admit, my pie must have been pretty darn good, because more than once someone would buy a slice and then come back to buy the rest of the pie.

Needless to say, by the time autumn rolled around, I was pretty done with pie.  While I felt like the enterprise was a success, I decided to hang up my apron for a time. Spending every night after work and then every weekend either baking or selling pies had taken a mental and physical toll. Oh, pies were baked, but usually only on special occasions and holidays. And every time I baked a pie, it never seemed to turn out quite the way I wanted. Being a bit, ok, a major, perfectionist, this was par for the course, but my pies became such a consistent source of annoyance every time I made one it became very discouraging. Somehow, I felt I had lost the touch.

But, usually not one for quitting, especially when it comes to baked goods, I gamely decided to make an apple pie this weekend, spurred on by a request to bake and blog about my experience. I was sent the link to Smitten Kitchen , a blog written by Deb Perelman, who not only takes beautiful and informative photographs of the food she creates, but also writes about it in smart, entertaining way.

While reading through Deb’s instructions and looking at her photos on how to make pie dough, I had a sudden revelation. See, the main frustration with my pies for the last year and a half have been due to the dough—somehow, whenever I went to roll it out, it always cracked or stuck to the table or the rolling pin or generally did something I didn’t want it to. What Deb recommends when making dough is that when cutting the butter into the flour mixture, to make sure to stop when the pieces of butter are the sizes of small peas. Now, this is actually a fairly standard instruction. Somehow, though, it never really stuck in my head. Whenever I cut the butter in, I was hell-bent-for-leather to get it as well combined as I possibly could. Which is actually NOT what you want to do. As Deb explains it, you actually want some larger bits of butter left in the dough, as this is what creates pockets of flakiness in the final product. Likewise, her recommendation of then mixing the water into the butter/flour mixture with a spatula, rather than the usual pastry cutter, also helped, as did her photos of what everything was supposed to look like. 

The gist of this all is to say is that I had been totally over-thinking the dough. Perhaps when I had been making enough of it at one time for six or eight pies, I didn’t over-mix due to the sheer quantity of materials with which I was working. When scaling down, I decided that this dough, because it was only for one pie, had to be perfect, which ultimately led to the gooey, sometimes-bland end result. When I followed Deb’s instructions for this Saturday’s pie, the dough behaved beautifully. No tearing, no cracking, no sticking. Once the baked pie came out of the oven, it was the most golden, flaky crust you could ask for. I didn’t even mind that the apple filling was more akin to applesauce than firm baked apple slices.

As someone who sometimes has unrealistically high standards for herself, this was all a  bit of a come-to-Jesus moment. Sometimes you have to allow for the little imperfections (butter, in this case), rather than beat them into some pre-conceived notion of what they should be. Otherwise, the final result can be bland and ultimately unfulfilling. And who wants that when they eat pie?