The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Baking - Donna Diegel [68]
Cookie crusts are easy. You can make them in a snap with store-bought natural vegan cookies, or you can whip up a batch of homemade Soft Molasses Cookie dough (recipe in Chapter 10), and make a Gingersnap Crust for the Pumpkin Cheesecake (recipe in Chapter 19). By the end of this chapter, you’ll see that you can have your vegan pie and eat it, too!
Piecrust Tips and Tricks
You don’t need a lot of fancy ingredients and equipment to make piecrusts, but some things will yield better results and come in handy.
All-purpose flour works best for plain flaky piecrusts. Whole-wheat flour makes a heartier crust, but it can also turn out heavier. For this reason, adding some whole-wheat pastry flour to the dough lightens it up a bit. Oats, nuts, barley flour, and even bread flour add dimension and a unique taste to piecrust. Some bakers even add cornstarch, baking powder, and vinegar to their recipe.
Just about any solid shortening works in a piecrust. Nonhydrogenated vegan margarine, or a combination of both Crisco Zero Trans Fat Shortening and vegan margarine, is a good way to reduce the trans fats in your diet.
Pie pans can be pretty and practical at the same time. Disposable aluminum, glass Pyrex, Grandma’s favorite embossed tin, and stoneware all work well for the recipes in this chapter.
DOUGH-NOT
Do not spray or grease the pie pan unless a recipe specifically directs you to. Some recipes, like the Flaky Piecrust, have enough fat in the dough, so it’s not likely to stick to the pan. Other recipes, like the Chocolate Cookie Crust, need a little vegetable spray to make it easier to remove pie slices from the pan after it’s baked.
A pastry blender is a handy gadget you’ll use often when making pies. Much like using two knives, it is quicker and less messy with the same results.
Use Grandma’s favorite wooden rolling pin, or the shiniest stainless-steel pin. You can even roll out pastry piecrusts with a wine bottle (remove the label and wash first, of course)! It doesn’t matter as long as you keep it coated with flour as you roll.
Rolled and crimped piecrusts and cookie crusts can be double-wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen before and after baking for longer storage. This is good news when you consider making a large batch of piecrust, rolling them out, baking them (or not), freezing them, and pulling one out whenever you have the urge to make a pie. I don’t recommend freezing raw balls of pie dough; they don’t thaw out well. Instead, flatten them into disc shapes for faster and easier thawing.
Rolling a Piecrust
If you’ve never rolled out a piecrust, the thought can be intimidating. But it needn’t be! Here’s how simple it is:
1. Sprinkle a handful of flour over the countertop, place the ball of chilled dough in the middle of the flour, and coat a rolling pin with flour.
2. Begin by rolling the dough with the pin, turning the dough as you roll to achieve a round shape. This may take several passes over the dough, turning this way and that.
3. Flip the dough over carefully, adding extra flour to the work surface as needed. Finish rolling on the second side to make a circle that’s 4 inches larger than the pie pan you’re using.
4. Fold the piecrust in half, gently pick it up, and place it in the pie pan, unfolding it to fit. Trim the edges if necessary, but not too much. You need enough overhang to fold the edges under.
5. Fold the edges under, turning the pan and pressing the edges together as you go.
You now have a choice as to how you want to finish the crust. If you’re making an open pie, as with a Pumpkin Pie or Pecan Pie (recipes in Chapter 14), press the edges down with the tines of a fork to seal them and give it a nice pattern.
You can also crimp the edges using your thumb and the forefinger of your left hand and the forefinger of