Working with the Dough

Appears in

Pie for Everyone: Recipes and Stories from Petee's Pie, New York's Best Pie Shop

Published 2020

About

Once you’ve made your dough, there are a few different directions you can go, but they all start with rolling. The recipes all yield enough dough to make both a top and bottom crust or two bottom crusts, plus a little extra to bake into a sweet snack I call Sugar Scraps.

If your kitchen is warm and the dough feels soft, you may want to chill your dough for 15 to 20 minutes before rolling. Alternatively, if it feels chilly and stiff, leave it to rest at room temperature for around 20 minutes before rolling. Due to the low moisture and high fat content of these doughs, there’s very little gluten development. This means that if the dough is at room temperature, there’s no need to let it rest for an hour before rolling it, as per standard pastry wisdom. With the exception of a few of the savory pies, you will need to start by making a bottom crust.