Welcome to Hotline Rewind, the weekly series where we gather up your questions from the week (and pepper in some from the Hotline archives) about a specific culinary topic. We are in the countdown to Turkey Day and we can basically guarantee that there will be at least one pie on your dessert table. Pie scares a lot of people because there are two distinct components that have a lot of variables: dough and filling. But never fear, I’m here to answer your questions:
Butter or shortening for crust?
Both have benefits, but butter beats out shortening for two key reasons. For one, shortening doesn’t bring a lot of flavor to the party, which can work in certain instances (pot pies, more subtly flavored things, for example). But in the case of pie dough, I love the richness that butter brings. Secondly, it results in a flaker crust. Flakes occur in pastry when the water in fat is heated until it evaporates, causing flakes to disperse through the dough. And because butter has a higher water content than shortening, so it results in a lighter, slightly more delicate (in a good way) crust.
