No-Fear Pie Crust

Looking closely at the pocket pie recipe, the crust for these things will be no problem whatsoever. With a standard pie crust, the object is to moisten as little as possible (so it doesn’t become tough) and knead as little as possible (so it doesn’t get chewy). The ideal is delicate, tender, flaky pastry that perfectly complements the filling. But with a pocket pie or pasty, there’s more to worry about than just taste, appearance and texture. There are functional issues to consider (see previous post: The Durability Factor). The crust can’t be too tender or flaky, or it wouldn’t make good packaging. Personally, I don’t expect I’ll be pitching my pies off a 30-foot platform, but still and all they’ll probably get bounced around a bit on their way to my wife’s office, and then who knows what the faculty and students will do to them after that (hopefully eat them, but…you really never know).

So a little bit of gluten development is OK. I’ll get that from the kneading the recipe calls for. Some extra liquid is OK too. There’ll be a lot of hand work involved making so many pies, I don’t want to have to worry about the dough cracking on me. This is one dough you’re very much going to like, pie crust-o-phobes! The cracking, crumbling, tearing and sticking you may experience with standard crusts will not be an issue here.