Crimped pie edges not holding shape with AP Flour
I am a fairly experienced baker, I am a bit frustrated with my pie crust not holding perfect crimped edges in the oven when blind baking. I compared two different flours this week: all purpose (365 Organic AP Flour) and whole wheat pastry (Arrowhead Mills). Everything else was the same.
*The whole wheat pastry flour maintained its shape (photo attached), the edge crimp stayed almost perfectly the way it went to the oven, and it had nice deep walls. With the AP flour, the crimped edges weren't nearly as defined, and the sides (where the pie starts to curve up towards the lip of the crust) rose up away from the bottom of the pan. The white flour almost always seems to puff white a bit during baking as well.
This is my current recipe:
360g (3 cups flour)
1 tablespoon sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
245g (2 sticks + 4 teaspoons) unsalted european style butter
1 tablespoon liquor (whiskey)
1 tablespoon vinegar (white wine, champagne, etc.)
4 to 6 tablespoons ice water
After making the dough, I refrigerated for at least an hour; then rolled, crimped, and froze each crust for about 6 to 8 hours. I docked the dough, added foil, and filled each crust to the brim with beans before baking in a 425 degree oven for 20 minutes; removed the beans, brushed with egg wash, and baked another 10 minutes.
Why are these behaving so differently? Could the subtle difference in gluten development be affecting this? And how can I get an AP crust to bake with the crimp staying near perfect and maintain a beautiful shape in the pie pan?
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13 Comments
I cut the fat in with a hand pastry cutter, then transfered to a stand mixer per @boulangere's suggestion. I was able to only work in about 5 tablespoons of liquid.
The crust held beautiful shape. I brushed it with an egg wash (1 egg, dash of cream, pinch of salt) and sprinkled with sugar for the final 10 minutes in the oven. Success!
Thanks everyone for the help.
Thanks for all the feedback!
(I'm taking a much needed break from the Thanksgiving prep in the kitchen. If I see another knob of butter, I'll scream.)
It can be caused by dough with too much fat, but your recipe isn't unusually heavy in fat.
It can be caused by mishandling the dough (stretching the gluten, which then shrinks back during baking), but if you were doing this you'd expect to see it in both doughs.
I suspect the AP flour dough may be too wet, which would account for both the slumping and the puffing. It takes time for flour in a dough to fully hydrate, and since a given amount of WW flour absorbs more water than the same amount of AP flour, the WW dough may end up being dryer than the AP dough after its initial rest.