As I revisited my authentic questions I can really see how much I have learned through this process! I still am not a master at pie crusts, as a couple came out drier than I'd hoped, but the difference is now I know why this happened and how to fix it for the next time! I'm so thrilled with this new skill for several reasons. First, I'm just happy to know how to do this because it is so cheap and fast to make your own pie crust. Second, I have another skill that I can pass onto my girls. Third, my husband gave me the huge compliment that my pie crust tasted just as good as his mom's! This is a big deal since in our circle of friends and family Carla's pies are beloved. This endeavor brought me closer to my family and I also got to virtually travel into several people's kitchens via YouTube. There is something special about being in the kitchen watching someone cook. I think there is a reason many people prefer to have open kitchen/dining rooms, why people like to sit at the chef's counter in restaurants, why at many dinner parties people tend to gather in the kitchen even if you're bustling around cooking. Dining together brings people together, but cooking together brings people's souls together. For me some of the best conversations I've had with my mom or dad have been while preparing a meal. Before I began this project I viewed this just as something that happens with your family in person. Through viewing videos online like this one, and this one, I felt like I was actually at these people's elbows connecting over pie crust. Silly? Maybe. But I think this speaks loudly to how, as educators we need to make our students feel connected to their learning, virtual or face-to-face.


Just like I did before, I have noted the questions I feel I've answered in green, those that I am not content with the information I've gained so far are noted in orange, and this time I do not have any questions in red.


Authentic Guiding Questions on my 
Quest for the Perfect Pie Crust
1. What makes a great crust?
Based upon informal conversations with co-workers, friends, and family I've concluded that while people's general opinion on "the perfect crust differs slightly" a common trend is that the crust is slightly crunchy, flakey, and the flavor compliments  the type of pie. For example, a slightly salty crust is ideal on sweet berry, fruit, and cream pies. 

2. What sets a homemade crust apart from a store bought/ready-made crust?
Store bought pie crust, which I have been using for years because of my previous epic fails at homemade pie crust making, are not vey flakey, bland, and can be tough.

3. How do different ingredients impact the finished/baked crust?
After test out three different crust recipes that used different ingredients I've come to these conclusions. Crisco made a fluffier  dough and flakier crust than butter. Butter when used in a recipe that also calls for sugar makes a more cookie-like textured crust. It melts in your mouth, but the texture is different than the recipe that uses Crisco. Using a combination of Crisco and butter produces a very fluffy crust that was slightly sweet. The texture was flakier than butter alone, but not as flakey as Crisco alone. I think using baking powder in the recipe with Crisco adds to the fluffiness of the dough. I discovered not many recipes call for baking powder. After leafing through  my grandmother's recipe book I found her hand written recipe for pie crust, also called for baking powder just like my mother-in-law's family recipe! I wonder if baking powder was more common in older recipes?

4. Is there one standard recipe with different preparation variations?
I've discovered that the basics are similar, however, the one big difference is the fat of choice. The recipes I have found either use butter, Crisco, or good old fashioned lard! All recipes I found use ice water though as the liquid. 

5. Or, are there many recipe variations with a standard preparation?
It seems that the standard preparation is to cut -in the fat ingredient into the dry ingredients then ad the water. Some recipes say to use the food processor to so this and others say to use a pastry cutter/blender. Another difference I've noticed in the videos if how the pie is transferred into the pie dish. Several bakers roll it up onto the rolling pin. My MIL rolls the dough out on wax paper then just flips it into the pie tin. 

6. Should different types of crusts be used for different types of pies?
The informal answer is, probably, yes. My formal answer is, I'm still looking into this. I want to visit Betty's Pie Whole Saloon and see if they use different crusts for their wide variety of pies or if they use the same crust for sweet or savory pies. 

7. If yes, how do you determine which type of crust to use?

8. How do you keep the crust from becoming rock hard?
The advice I've read says to be sure not to over work the dough. This causes the fat ingredient to melt and then the dough can become tough.

9. How do you keep the crust from becoming overly soggy?
I noticed that this happened with the pumpkin pies I made. These pies were in the refrigerator so maybe the condensation causes this.

10. How do you keep the crust from splitting/cracking apart when putting it into the pie dish?
Practice! And.... knowing what your dough should look and feel like, which comes with practice. I noticed that one of the pumpkin pie crusts I made was drier than it was the previous time I had tried that crust recipe. I needed to add more water. I think this may be why bakers find a crust they love and then stick with it. Consistency and reliability matter when you're trying to whip up a pie and don't have time for a "re-do"!

11. How do you make the pie crust more decorative and how do you make the top of a cherry pie look like a lattice?
Start with a good pie dough. It must be flexible and not too dry. Using a pizza roller to cut the strips makes easy work. You can also use your fingers or a fork to make a crimped edge around the crust.

     The idea of creating a beautiful lattice top crust brings back bad memories of a pie I tried to bake years ago when I first moved out on my own. The lattice top ended up looking like one of those photos on Pinterest Fail lists, which I secretly love looking at. (Check them out, they are always funny and  make me happy to know that I'm not the only one who has botched a project!) Well, I was determined to redeem myself. I prepared by watching several videos on YouTube. The two I found most helpful are below. I also chose to use Carla's Crust since it seemed the most sturdy, flexible, and least sticky out of the three crusts I've tried.

     I was really shocked at how easily this came together. This showed me that the quality of the crust is everything! My epic fail involved a crust that broke every time I tried to pull up a strip to weave the dough. So clearly having a fluffy, flexible dough makes this process so much easier! 

     Check out my cherry pie! For the filling I prefer extra cherries so I added a can of plain cherries to the 2 cans of cherry pie filling. I mixed this all together in a bowl first then transferred it to the pie dish.


Filling:
2 cans cherry pie filling
1 can cherries, drained
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp almond extract

Toss the drained cherries with the flour cinnamon and almond extract. Fold in the pre-made cherry pie filling and gently combine. Transfer into pie crust. I sprinkled a little sugar across the top of the pie once the lattice top was in place. Bake for 35-45 min at 425 degrees.

     Did you know that humans have on average 10,000 taste buds that are replaced every two weeks? Some people tend to be more sensitive to various tastes than other people. This may be due to the number of working taste buds 1.
     In order to really determine the quality of the taste of a pie crust I set-up a blind taste test for my family. The participants: my husband, my dad, and my daughter. Granted, this was not a large sample group; however, they have been on the side-lines on my journey to make a perfect pie crust and this was a great way to keep them interested. I decided to actually make pies and not just the crust because I felt it was wasteful to use the ingredients for the crust just to taste part of it and toss the rest. November happens to lend itself perfectly for pie crust sampling as there are typically multiple events where pie might be served. I wanted to avoid having three pies around my house, or else my next project might be:  "How-to-loose-the=15-pounds-gained-from- learning-how-to-make-a-perfect-pie-crust!" So I jumped at the opportunity to sign-up to bring pies for the two potlucks I was invited to.
    I made 3 pies, which I will identify as follows: Carla's Crust (the recipe from my mother-in-law), William-Sonoma's crust (William Sonoma's recipe), and Aida's crust (recipe from the Food Network's Aida Mollenkamp). These were all pumpkin pies so the filling was exactly the same for each. The only difference was the crust. After I flipped the crusts into the pie dishes I used a butter knife to trim off the excess crust. This is what we used for the blind tastes test. I rolled out each bit of scrap individually. I brushed them with a little butter and then sprinkled cinnamon sugar over the top. I placed them on parchment paper, which I labeled so I would know which crust was which. After they were nice a toasted I removed the pan from the oven, put the actual pies in the oven to bake and then I rallied my tasters. The tasters only knew the crusts as #1, #2, and #3.

Observations from working with the dough: 
#1 rolled out a little dry this time. I think I should have added more water. Last time it was airier. 
#2 This crust was very dense, but not dry to work with. 
#3 This crust was very fluffy to work with. It was slightly sticky, but rolled out well.
    
 Observations from the tasters about each crust: 
#1 Carla's Crust: flakey, a slightly salty, melts in your mouth. 
#2 William-Sonoma Crust: not flakey, but buttery and melts in your mouth, more of a crispy texture, sweet 
#3 Aida's crust: flakey, buttery and slightly salty and sweet, crunchier, but not hard. 

     My husband quickly picked out his mother's crust from the three, which surprised me since I thought #1 and #3 tasted very similar. He reminded me that he'd been eating that crust his whole life and he has always been able to pick it out in a crowd.

Conclusions:
     I really liked the texture of the dough for crust #3. I'd picked this recipe because it was a nice mix of the recipes for crust #1 and #2. It called for butter and crisco! It had less sugar than the William-Sonoma recipe, but it did not contain baking powder like my mother-in-law's recipe. However, I preferred the saltier favor of Carla's crust, especially with a sweet filling. The flavor of crust #3 was a nice balance between #1 and #2. I think crust #2 or #3 would be nice with a cream or custard type of pie. The final task I want to tackle is creating a lattice top pie crust. I think I will use crust #1 for this since it seemed to be the sturdier between crusts #1 and #3.


References:
http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/taste_buds.html

     Time to test out another pie crust dough recipe! I selected the William-Sonoma basic pie dough recipe because of it's similarity to the recipe my mother-in-law and I used in my first attempt. The main differences are that this recipe uses butter, as the fat ingredient, it does not use baking powder, but it does have a little sugar in it. The recipe uses a similar preparation process because it gets rolled out immediately. Some other recipes call for the dough to be chilled for several hours before rolling out. I though it would be good to keep the variables to just the ingredients for this test run. The recipe gives two options for mixing the dough, either by hand with a pastry cutter or in a stand mixer. I chose to use the pastry cutter since this was how I did it with my mother-in-law. Again, I was aiming to keep the only variables the ingredients.

I turned out the apples and sprinkled on the crumble topping (see recipes below). I followed Mom's advice and left the pie crust shield on for the duration of baking. In addition, for the last 15 minutes I put foil on top to keep the crumble topping from burning. It worked nicely. I can't wait for it to cool so I can taste it!


Blind taste test update: 
Due to time constraints this weekend. I didn't have to make all three crusts to do the blind taste test.

UPDATE! The pie was amazingly delicious if I do say so myself. My family loved it. The crust had a different texture than the first recipe I tried. It seems the sugar and butter make a difference in its texture. It wasn't quite as flakey, but it was melt in your mouth buttery. My next challenge will be to tackle doing a lattice topped cherry pie!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
• 3 Tbs. very cold water

Directions:
To make the dough by hand, in a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar and salt. Using a pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the texture resembles coarse cornmeal, with butter pieces no larger than small peas. Add the water and mix with a fork just until the dough pulls together.

To make the dough in a stand mixer, fit the mixer with the flat beater, and stir together the flour, sugar and salt in the mixer bowl. Add the butter and toss with a fork to coat with the flour mixture. Mix on medium-low speed until the texture resembles coarse cornmeal, with the butter pieces no larger than small peas. Add the water and mix on low speed just until the dough pulls together.

Transfer the dough to a work surface, pat into a ball and flatten into a disk. (Although many dough recipes call for chilling the dough at this point, this dough should be rolled out immediately for the best results.) Lightly flour the work surface, then flatten the disk with 6 to 8 gentle taps of the rolling pin. Lift the dough and give it a quarter turn. Lightly dust the top of the dough or the rolling pin with flour as needed, then roll out into a round at least 12 inches in diameter and about 1/8 inch thick. Makes enough dough for one 9-inch single-crust pie or one 10-inch galette. 

Today, I was reflecting on why I had not been successful in following pie crust recipes before. There are three main differences in today's attempt and my past attempts. 

1. Do not work the dough too much- this makes it tough. It is important to cut the fat into the dry ingredients just enough, but not too much. You want it to be evenly combined to about pea-sized crumbles.
   
2. Add baking powder to the mix! Why? Because Mom said so, that's why!
   
3. Leave the pie shield on the whole time while baking. It won't hurt anything, and will probably help the crust to brown evenly.
   

It happened to be Mom's birthday today. Wasn't it sweet of her to spend her birthday showing me how she makes pie crust? We have saved the big taste test for tomorrow when we  will get together with the whole family to celebrate her birthday.  Happy birthday to the best Mother-in-Law a lady could hope for! I feel very proud to now know the recipe and techniques for making a nice and flakey pie crust that has been handed down in my husband's family for generations. I'm crossing my fingers that my pie hold up!

I still have some questions I want to investigate. Especially, the difference in crust outcomes based upon ingredients and about decorative top crusts. I am predicting that being able to make a sturdy pie crust dough is the foundation for being able to create a beautiful lattice topped pie. 

UPDATE:
The pie was awesome! The crust held up, but was flaky too. I cannot believe I actually did it. My family was sure Mom had done it, she attested that it was indeed my own work. She also said that paying careful attention to how much you cut-in the crisco to the dry ingredients is important to make the crust flaky. If you do it too much it will be tough and not enough it will fall apart. Good to know! Next up, road testing two more recipes from online. Then a blind taste test of the three crusts!