AuthorviagelatohawaiiCategoryBaking, Hawaii RecipesDifficultyAdvancedAll my pro-tips and tricks to making a FLAKY Pie Dough by hand ~no machines needed.
How to form and roll the dough out neatly (no mess to clean up).
How to blind bake the pie crust without pie weights, beans, or rice.
How to get all the hallmarks of perfect custard: perfectly set and firm and wonderfully sliceable in clean professional slices, yet completely soft and tender.
Cut up the butter into small pieces that you can easily pinch and smash between your fingers. Mix that in with the flour so the butter is all individually coated in flour. If you tend to work slowly, put the flour in the freezer so that it is chilled - that will buy you more time while you work.
Pinch the pieces of butter between your fingers so that they flatten and thin out. The shape is unimportant. Work quickly because when the butter is warm and soft, it won't hold it's shape when you pinch it. Toss the flattened pinched pieces of butter in the flour so that they are generally all individually coated. If the butter is smearing and losing it's shape, put it in the fridge or freezer until it holds it's shape when pinched.
Prepare the ice water and gradually drizzle some ice water over the butter flour mixture. Toss it around like you're dressing a salad. Continue doing this until the mixture no longer looks powdery, but more like a crumble. It will not look sticky and it will not look like a dough - it will look like a crumble.
Lay out a generous portion of plastic wrap on the table. Pour out the crumble mixture onto the plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap, press the crumble so that it sticks together. Take up one end of plastic and press the crumble down beneath the plastic. Repeat on all 4 sides of the plastic wrap and continue to repeat until the crumble is all stuck together in one fairly unified disc. At this point, if the dough begins to stick to the plastic, put it in the freezer to chill for 10 minutes. You can only roll it out, if it is NOT sticking to the plastic. If it is sticking to the plastic, then the butter is melting and you need to chill it in the freezer for 10 minutes.
The reason you are using plastic wrap is to prevent the butter from melting on your hands and fingers and therefore sticking to them as well as making the flaky pie dough into a gluey sticky mush. Use the plastic wrap as if you're making a musubi or handling rice, so that the dough sticks to itself, not to you.
Lay out even more plastic wrap so that you have two pieces on the work surface, creating a square on which you will roll out the pie dough. Put the pie dough disc in the center. Put 2 more sheets of plastic wrap on top of the pie dough disc. Now you have the dough encased between plastic wrap. Roll the dough out using a rolling pin and try to make a circular shape. If it's not a circle, it's not a problem, you can just cut pieces and stick it together like clay in the shape you want.
Peel off the top layer of plastic when you are done rolling. Put the pie tin over the center. Pick up the plastic on the bottom so you can get your hand under it, and hold the pie dough to the tin as you flip it right side up. If it's off center, simply pick it up using the plastic wrap that it is stuck to and center it. Once centered, peel off the plastic wrap. You can continue to use the plastic wrap to fold the excess onto the lip of the pie tin. This will create the crust edge. Crimp or pinch the crust how you like it.
I find the easiest technique is using your left thumb and index finger in a pinching V formation on the inside edge of the crust, while your right index or middle finger pokes between the left fingers' V formation. Use your fingers like a stamp making Vs as the crust edge.
Put the crust into the freezer and turn on the oven to 400 degrees F to preheat.
While the crust chills in the freezer and the oven is preheating, make the pumpkin custard filling
For video on how to make Pie Crust and the consistency and technique, watch my YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/2klTl7LCpnU
Pumpkin Pie is essentially a custard pie that has pumpkin and spices inside. Start by making custard on your stove.
In a pot, pour 1 pint of heavy whipping cream and 100g of brown sugar. Let that heat up on medium heat.
In a bowl, whisk 2 eggs. When the cream and sugar mixture in the pot is warm and steaming, pour half of it into the eggs and whisk it together. Pour that back into the pot and continue heating it while whisking occasionally on medium heat. This mixture will thicken to the consistency of gravy, it might even get as thick as a loose pudding. At that point, turn off the heat and take the pot off the stove. By now, you should be ready to bake your pie crust.
Get a sheet pan. Put a piece of parchment on it.
Put an empty pie tin upside-down on the parchment on the sheet pan.
Put another sheet of parchment on the empty and upside-down pie tin.
Take out your frozen pie crust and put it upside-down, nesting it on top of the parchment over the empty pie tin.
You're going to bake it like this: upside-down, with an empty pie tin underneath it to hold its shape
The parchment is there so that it doesn't stick to the pie tin.
The pie tin is there so that it helps to keep the pie's shape while it bakes and gets soft in the oven.
It is upside-down because of gravity. You are using gravity to assist you keep the shape of the pie crust.
If you bake the crust right side up, you are going against gravity and the crust will shrink and want to slump down as it gets soft in the hot oven. Even with pastry weights, the crust will want to sink down and will want to shrink when you take the weights off. Baking it upside-down I've found, is the easiest way to maintain it's shape so that I can pour the filling inside.
Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees
If this is confusing to you, watch my YouTube video on How to Blind Bake Pie Crust
https://youtu.be/J9aDstJjfZA
While the crust is baking, start making the pumpkin and the spice flavoring. The custard part has already been made on the stove.
In a small bowl, put 1/4 cup ice water and sprinkle a packet of gelatin on it so that the gelatin can suck up the water and become a gel.
In another bowl, put half of the 15oz can of pumpkin. Add the 3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon, 3/4 tsp of powdered ginger, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg. Add the 2 tbsp of molasses.
Dump the hydrated gelatin into the pot of hot custard. If the custard is no longer hot, heat it up on the stovetop and whisk in the gelatin until it has dissolved. Once dissolved, turn off the stove. Add the bowl with the pumpkin mixture and whisk it all together in the pot. The heat is not on. The pumpkin custard is ready to go.
At this point, the 20 minute timer should have gone off for your crust that is baking upside-down.
Take the pie pan off, exposing the bottom of the pie crust. Use tongs and if it seems sticky, simply jiggle the tin side to side with the tongs. It should come off easily.
If it doesn't come off easily, keep baking it with the pie tin on for another 5 or 10 minutes. Then try remove it again.
Once you remove the pie tin and expose the bottom of the pie crust, bake it for another 10 minutes.
After that, put the tin back on the crust and take the whole sheet pan with the crust, out of the oven.
LEAVE THE OVEN ON. (You still need to bake the pie with the filling inside)
Using the bottom most parchment paper, I lift the entire apparatus off of the sheet pan.
The goal is to flip everything right side up. It's just awkward now because the crust is super hot and the pie tins are hot.
I purposely do not wait for the crust to cool because when I pour the custard into the hot crust, it will form a skin on contact ~ this will prevent the crust from getting soggy.
Do your best to flip the pie tins right side up and you can remove the empty pie tin and parchment. You will reveal a par-baked crust that you will now fill with the pumpkin custard.
Put the pie tin and crust back onto the sheet pan (it's easier to grab and put it in the oven, and if you spill or make a mess, it will catch those spills).
Pour out the contents of the pot ~ the pumpkin custard goes into the pie crust. If it doesn't all fit inside and there is too much filling, do not overfill the pie.
Put the sheet pan with the pie into the oven still at 400 degrees F and cook it for about 45 minutes. Check it at 30 minutes, if the crust is too brown, cover it lightly with foil (Keep in mind if the foil touches the filling, it will stick to it and you'll have a pie that looks like it peeled off.)
When the pie is done, the edges will appear like they are bubbling.
If the pie does not seem firm and jiggles, don't worry, it's already cooked (you cooked it on the stove). The gelatin will set the pie in the fridge after it's cooled.
Take it out and let it cool and when it is cool where you can pick it up with your hands, put it in the fridge to set OVERNIGHT.
Gelatin and custard sets best overnight.
Cut it up and serve it the following day/night with whipped cream or vanilla bean gelato.
Ingredients
Directions
Cut up the butter into small pieces that you can easily pinch and smash between your fingers. Mix that in with the flour so the butter is all individually coated in flour. If you tend to work slowly, put the flour in the freezer so that it is chilled - that will buy you more time while you work.
Pinch the pieces of butter between your fingers so that they flatten and thin out. The shape is unimportant. Work quickly because when the butter is warm and soft, it won't hold it's shape when you pinch it. Toss the flattened pinched pieces of butter in the flour so that they are generally all individually coated. If the butter is smearing and losing it's shape, put it in the fridge or freezer until it holds it's shape when pinched.
Prepare the ice water and gradually drizzle some ice water over the butter flour mixture. Toss it around like you're dressing a salad. Continue doing this until the mixture no longer looks powdery, but more like a crumble. It will not look sticky and it will not look like a dough - it will look like a crumble.
Lay out a generous portion of plastic wrap on the table. Pour out the crumble mixture onto the plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap, press the crumble so that it sticks together. Take up one end of plastic and press the crumble down beneath the plastic. Repeat on all 4 sides of the plastic wrap and continue to repeat until the crumble is all stuck together in one fairly unified disc. At this point, if the dough begins to stick to the plastic, put it in the freezer to chill for 10 minutes. You can only roll it out, if it is NOT sticking to the plastic. If it is sticking to the plastic, then the butter is melting and you need to chill it in the freezer for 10 minutes.
The reason you are using plastic wrap is to prevent the butter from melting on your hands and fingers and therefore sticking to them as well as making the flaky pie dough into a gluey sticky mush. Use the plastic wrap as if you're making a musubi or handling rice, so that the dough sticks to itself, not to you.
Lay out even more plastic wrap so that you have two pieces on the work surface, creating a square on which you will roll out the pie dough. Put the pie dough disc in the center. Put 2 more sheets of plastic wrap on top of the pie dough disc. Now you have the dough encased between plastic wrap. Roll the dough out using a rolling pin and try to make a circular shape. If it's not a circle, it's not a problem, you can just cut pieces and stick it together like clay in the shape you want.
Peel off the top layer of plastic when you are done rolling. Put the pie tin over the center. Pick up the plastic on the bottom so you can get your hand under it, and hold the pie dough to the tin as you flip it right side up. If it's off center, simply pick it up using the plastic wrap that it is stuck to and center it. Once centered, peel off the plastic wrap. You can continue to use the plastic wrap to fold the excess onto the lip of the pie tin. This will create the crust edge. Crimp or pinch the crust how you like it.
I find the easiest technique is using your left thumb and index finger in a pinching V formation on the inside edge of the crust, while your right index or middle finger pokes between the left fingers' V formation. Use your fingers like a stamp making Vs as the crust edge.
Put the crust into the freezer and turn on the oven to 400 degrees F to preheat.
While the crust chills in the freezer and the oven is preheating, make the pumpkin custard filling
For video on how to make Pie Crust and the consistency and technique, watch my YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/2klTl7LCpnU
Pumpkin Pie is essentially a custard pie that has pumpkin and spices inside. Start by making custard on your stove.
In a pot, pour 1 pint of heavy whipping cream and 100g of brown sugar. Let that heat up on medium heat.
In a bowl, whisk 2 eggs. When the cream and sugar mixture in the pot is warm and steaming, pour half of it into the eggs and whisk it together. Pour that back into the pot and continue heating it while whisking occasionally on medium heat. This mixture will thicken to the consistency of gravy, it might even get as thick as a loose pudding. At that point, turn off the heat and take the pot off the stove. By now, you should be ready to bake your pie crust.
Get a sheet pan. Put a piece of parchment on it.
Put an empty pie tin upside-down on the parchment on the sheet pan.
Put another sheet of parchment on the empty and upside-down pie tin.
Take out your frozen pie crust and put it upside-down, nesting it on top of the parchment over the empty pie tin.
You're going to bake it like this: upside-down, with an empty pie tin underneath it to hold its shape
The parchment is there so that it doesn't stick to the pie tin.
The pie tin is there so that it helps to keep the pie's shape while it bakes and gets soft in the oven.
It is upside-down because of gravity. You are using gravity to assist you keep the shape of the pie crust.
If you bake the crust right side up, you are going against gravity and the crust will shrink and want to slump down as it gets soft in the hot oven. Even with pastry weights, the crust will want to sink down and will want to shrink when you take the weights off. Baking it upside-down I've found, is the easiest way to maintain it's shape so that I can pour the filling inside.
Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees
If this is confusing to you, watch my YouTube video on How to Blind Bake Pie Crust
https://youtu.be/J9aDstJjfZA
While the crust is baking, start making the pumpkin and the spice flavoring. The custard part has already been made on the stove.
In a small bowl, put 1/4 cup ice water and sprinkle a packet of gelatin on it so that the gelatin can suck up the water and become a gel.
In another bowl, put half of the 15oz can of pumpkin. Add the 3/4 tsp of ground cinnamon, 3/4 tsp of powdered ginger, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg. Add the 2 tbsp of molasses.
Dump the hydrated gelatin into the pot of hot custard. If the custard is no longer hot, heat it up on the stovetop and whisk in the gelatin until it has dissolved. Once dissolved, turn off the stove. Add the bowl with the pumpkin mixture and whisk it all together in the pot. The heat is not on. The pumpkin custard is ready to go.
At this point, the 20 minute timer should have gone off for your crust that is baking upside-down.
Take the pie pan off, exposing the bottom of the pie crust. Use tongs and if it seems sticky, simply jiggle the tin side to side with the tongs. It should come off easily.
If it doesn't come off easily, keep baking it with the pie tin on for another 5 or 10 minutes. Then try remove it again.
Once you remove the pie tin and expose the bottom of the pie crust, bake it for another 10 minutes.
After that, put the tin back on the crust and take the whole sheet pan with the crust, out of the oven.
LEAVE THE OVEN ON. (You still need to bake the pie with the filling inside)
Using the bottom most parchment paper, I lift the entire apparatus off of the sheet pan.
The goal is to flip everything right side up. It's just awkward now because the crust is super hot and the pie tins are hot.
I purposely do not wait for the crust to cool because when I pour the custard into the hot crust, it will form a skin on contact ~ this will prevent the crust from getting soggy.
Do your best to flip the pie tins right side up and you can remove the empty pie tin and parchment. You will reveal a par-baked crust that you will now fill with the pumpkin custard.
Put the pie tin and crust back onto the sheet pan (it's easier to grab and put it in the oven, and if you spill or make a mess, it will catch those spills).
Pour out the contents of the pot ~ the pumpkin custard goes into the pie crust. If it doesn't all fit inside and there is too much filling, do not overfill the pie.
Put the sheet pan with the pie into the oven still at 400 degrees F and cook it for about 45 minutes. Check it at 30 minutes, if the crust is too brown, cover it lightly with foil (Keep in mind if the foil touches the filling, it will stick to it and you'll have a pie that looks like it peeled off.)
When the pie is done, the edges will appear like they are bubbling.
If the pie does not seem firm and jiggles, don't worry, it's already cooked (you cooked it on the stove). The gelatin will set the pie in the fridge after it's cooled.
Take it out and let it cool and when it is cool where you can pick it up with your hands, put it in the fridge to set OVERNIGHT.
Gelatin and custard sets best overnight.
Cut it up and serve it the following day/night with whipped cream or vanilla bean gelato.