Is it a good idea to make pie crust using a stand mixer?
Or is it really better to combine all of the ingredients — the flour and salt, fat and water — by hand?
The vast majority of pie crust recipes (including those here on our recipe site) direct you to combine the dry ingredients, then work the fat in using a pastry blender, pastry fork, two knives, or your hands.
As far as using one of your handy countertop appliances, some folks say you can make pie crust using a food processor.
But never will you see anyone espousing the use of a stand mixer (or electric hand mixer) to make pie crust.
Why is that? We use our trusty stand mixers for everything from brownie batter to bread dough — why not pie crust?
Some say a mixer toughens crust.
Others say it doesn’t flatten the fat in just the right way.
And for some, I think it’s simply resistance to change: Great-Grandma didn’t use a mixer, and neither do I!
Well, I’m going to tell you a little secret: I’ve been using my stand mixer to make pie crust for years.
Nay, decades, ever since I got my first mixer by saving S&H Green Stamps (and if you know what those are, you know how long ago that was!).
Truthfully, you may get marginally flakier pie crust by flattening each little piece of cold butter by hand as you work it into the flour.
But these days, my aging hands, wrists, and shoulders — to say nothing of my patience — are sorely tried by the process.
I’ve used a stand mixer to make pie crust forever, and people have always raved about my crust.
And I believe that using a stand mixer to make pie crust is a perfectly reasonable solution for those who don’t want to work fat and flour together by hand.
Source:
How to make pie crust in your stand mixer – Flourish – King Arthur Flour
Leave a Reply