Pie Doughs

Appears in

Published 2008

About

Before you begin studying this section, review the section on gluten development. Pie pastry is a simple product in terms of its ingredients: flour, shortening, water, and salt. Yet success or failure depends on how the shortening and flour are mixed and how the gluten is developed. The key to making pie dough is proper technique, and you will remember the techniques better if you understand why they work.

Pies in History

If we take the word pie to mean any of a variety of foods enclosed in pastry and baked, then there have been pies for nearly all of recorded history. In ancient Greece and Rome, doughs made with olive oil were used to cover or enclose various ingredients.

In English, the word pie used in this way dates back to at least 1300. It is probably a short form of magpie, a bird that collects a variety of things, just as bakers do when they are assembling ingredients to bake in a pie. In the Middle Ages, the word pie almost always referred to savory pies containing meats, poultry, or game. Today, in England, the word is still used largely for meat pies, both hot and cold (cold pies being similar to what we might call pâtés), while in North America, savory pies, such as chicken “pot pie,” are still enjoyed.

North Americans, however, are responsible for turning the development of pies firmly away from savory and toward sweet. Fruit pies, especially apple pie, are perhaps still the most popular, but pastry cooks have devised dessert pie fillings from many other ingredients as well.

Pies are so popular that, across the continent, they are the feature of annual summer festivals. The little town of Braham, for example, which bills itself as the Pie Capital of Minnesota, hosts a popular festival called Pie Day, featuring pie sales, baking contests, art and craft shows, and daylong entertainment, all in celebration of pies.