The Road Less Traveled

Achieving a delicious and flaky pastry for your pies is one of the most difficult tasks for any baker, novice or experienced.  Here is a unique recipe made a little different from the average pastry ingredients I have come across beforehand.  It goes well together particularly for apple and cherry pie fillings, but I am certain there are many varieties you could experiment with.  The key is in the pure butter, once again.  Now everyone has their preferences; some for shortening, or margarine, butter, or a mixture but I have found butter works best.  The key is in leaving pea sized butter within the dough for this is what creates the flaky nature of the pastry. 

Ingredients for All-Butter Almond Crust Pastry:

2 cups flour
1/2 cup finely ground almonds or almond flour; you can substitute 1/2 cup flour if you don’t have almonds
2 sticks chilled and unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon brown sugar
3 to 6 Tbsp water, very cold or substitute water for a spritz product like ginger ale or 7up

Instructions:

Combine all the dry ingredients how you choose to do it within your kitchen: By hand in a bowl, or a food processor.  Mix and blend with butter until a course meal.  Add water last, a little at a time.  The pastry dough is ready when it sticks together between your fingers. If it does not, continue to add water up to 6 tablespoons.  The butter should not blend completely into the dough mixture; rather, leave small pea size pieces within the pastry dough.  Do not over knead or overwork your pastry, or it will become tough.  Chill pastry dough for at least an hour.  When you pull your pastry dough out for use, brush pastry top of crust with a mixture of cream and egg yolk. Optional, add a ¼ teaspoon of almond extract to the cream/or milk and egg mixture.

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