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Plain Pastry
1 1/2 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 cup shortening cold water Sift dry ingredients and cut in shortening with two knives, or pastry blender. Add just enough water to soften dough. Toss on board, dredged sparingly with flour. Roll out lightly, keeping the paste as circular in form as possible. Line pie pan very lightly to avoid stretching, pricking thoroughly to avoid puffing. Bake at 450 degrees F. This will make 2 crusts. For filled pies, bake at temperatures given in recipes.
A short, workmanlike pie dough of the kind that anchored American cookbooks between the wars. The recipe assumes you know a few things it never says, chiefly how cold everything should be and how long a blind-baked shell stays in the oven.
- The hinge: keep it cold, handle it littleShortening should be chilled and the water ice-cold, and the mixture cut only to the size of coarse peas. Once the water goes in, work the dough just until it coheres; every extra turn develops gluten and toughens the crust.
- How much water"Just enough water to soften dough" is roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons for this quantity of flour, added a tablespoon at a time. Humidity and flour brand shift the number, so go by feel: the dough should hold together when pressed, not feel tacky.
- Shortening has changedIn this period shortening meant hydrogenated vegetable fat, sold in a can and generally firmer at room temperature than today's reformulated, trans-fat-free versions. If yours is soft, chill it well; an equal weight of cold lard, or half butter and half shortening, also works and gives more flavour.
- The baking powderHalf a teaspoon in pie dough is not a misprint; baking powder turns up in a number of pastry recipes of this period, though the reason is rarely stated. It is optional; leaving it out gives a slightly crisper shell.
- Blind-baking timeAt 450F an unfilled pricked shell needs about 10 to 12 minutes, until pale gold. Pricking alone often will not stop slumping in a modern thin metal pan, so line the shell with parchment and pie weights for the first 8 minutes, then remove them to finish.
- Rest before rollingThe recipe rolls straight out, but 30 minutes wrapped in the refrigerator lets the flour hydrate and the gluten relax. The dough rolls more evenly afterward and shrinks less in the pan.
- YieldEnough for two 9-inch single shells, or one 9-inch double-crust pie. For a double-crust pie, divide the dough unevenly and use the larger piece for the bottom.