Centerville piecrust
Back in the days when I did a lot more cooking, I used to make my own piecrust. It always was okay, but I never mastered the art of making it really really good. Oh, I got lots of tips that I tried to follow, about the proportions of this and that and how long to rest it or chill it or any number of other tricks of the trade that people swore by. But my piecrust remained merely passable.
So finally I decided I’d done my time in the piecrust saltmines and I started buying prepared crust. That was only marginally better (sometimes worse), and I tried a great many brands.
Over the years, I’ve come to the point where I cook much more simply and hardly ever make pies of any kind. But this past Thanksgiving I decided to make a pecan pie, because the prepared one I had bought at the grocery store was awful.
So this was the first time I’d looked at prepared piecrusts in many a year. I decided to go for the easiest type: frozen. There was a slightly cheaper type and a slightly more expensive type, and I decided to go for the latter. It was made by a company called Centerville Pie Company.
I didn’t have especially high hopes for all the aforementioned reasons. But this piecrust was absolutely delicious, the cadillac of piecrusts. It’s a New England company, though, so it might not be available outside of the area – the website says they’re at the following stores in the Northeast (whatever that means): Market Basket, Big Y, Harris Teeter, Schnucks, Publix, and some Walmarts.. I got mine at a Market Basket. It was everything a piecrust should be. It came in a package of two, so I still have one in the freezer. I’m planning to make a quiche.
They also ship nationwide, but as far as I can tell that refers to the pies rather than just the crust. I haven’t had a pie, but I bet they’re good. And I don’t even get a commission from this. Just the joy of spreading piecrust around.
The food processor is the key to homemade pie crust. But there are some good products out there. And some pretty pedestrian products. Happy holidays, everyone!
Yes, food processor and butter. But I don’t make pie crust any more, either. For Thanksgiving I made pumpkin pie filling with my regular recipe and baked it in little custard cups, with no crust.
But if I want pie crust I’ll check Harris Teeter and Publix, which are hardly Northeast grocery chains.
I have not seen Centerville Pie crusts in southern Ohio, but I have used Marie Callendar frozen pie crusts and am very happy with them. Their other products — frozen chicken and turkey pot pies and frozen prepared pies — are also quite good. My wife used to make a pie crust that was very good, and before that my mother (who went to a finishing school and came out quite a good cook and hostess) made an outstanding pie crust. We just made a pair of quiches using the Marie Callendar frozen pie shells and they were very good.
My brother developed gluten intolerance as an adult. For years, I tried to make a gluten-free pastry crust that he could eat. (Pies are big at our Thanksgiving.) I tried gluten-free flour, gluten-free pie crust mixes, even gluten-free frozen pie crusts from Whole Foods. None were satisfactory. Finally I asked a friend who had once been a chef, and who makes terrific pies, how to do it. She said, “Don’t even try. Make a non-pastry style crust, like a nut crust, that is excellent on its own terms”. Great advice. Now I make pumpkin pie with a cookie crust that uses Tate’s gluten-free ginger cookies. It is wonderful. It’s also pretty easy.
I second (third) food processor and butter (or shortening). It is really easy to make pie crust that way, provided you measure flour in grams and don’t over handle the dough. I use Kenji Alt-Lopez’s recipe but I’m sure there’s others out there.
I invariably buy graham-cracker crust though; I don’t think the taste is worth the effort of making it, and since I learned to make pie crust I have generally used pie crust instead of graham cracker crust and no one has complained.
I tried the food processor way back when and never found it satisfactory.
I’ve never tried to make a pie. I did make a quiche once for a Christmas dinner in grad school, but I think not more than once. But these comments make pies sound interesting. And they’re certainly seasonally fitting.
Apple, blueberry, cherry, strawberry rhubarb. Not too many dessert pies cut it. Those do if you get the correct sugar and spice content. (I did know a lady who made a boffo eggnog pie).
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Mince and pumpkin are ceremonial for Thanksgiving (as is plum pudding for Christmas).
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As a proper New Yorker, you should be expected to know that cheese cake is boss, and never better than the original, unadorned.
I’ve wanted to make quiche since I started learning French.
Immersion!
Then my mind moves to the crust step and I fall sleep with the quandariness.
I just need to act boldly — yea! to buy a pre-made crust.
I’m not entirely hopeless. I once took Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One” in hand and made a serviceable Boeuf Bourguignon.
When I look at the ingredients in a French recipe, I think, how can you go wrong?
I’ve been satisfied with Marie Callendar, but home made is better if you can manage it.
I have not seen Centerville Pie crusts in southern Ohio, but I have used Marie Callendar frozen pie crusts and am very happy with them.
F:
Thanks for the tip. I’m betting I can’t find Centerville Pie products in New Mexico.
Harpoon, yes, I also tried GF pie crusts, all sorts of them, when my daughter developed extreme gluten intolerance. GF crumb toppings are good. GF pie crusts in general are unsatisfactory.
Made seven hand pies (various fruit fillings, apple, blackberry, cherry all homemade) just this morning. There’s one and a half left this evening. Crust: 150 gr. ap-flour, salt to taste, 1 stick butter, ice cold water. Easy as — yes — pie.
My rural Montana cousin tells me that lard piecrusts are much better–flakier–than Crisco piecrusts. She makes tallow and lard from beef and pig fat: melts it
down and strains out the “impurities.”
Regarding the health effects of lard etc., she refers us to her paternal grandmother (not mine, who died at 80), who died at 98.
The claimed good-health effects of avoiding “evil” saturated fats (i.e., more hydrogen atoms per molecule than unsaturated) is Greenie-leftist-vegan absurdity in spades. I grew up on lard (purified pig fat, saturated) since it was much cheaper than butter, fine on bread with a touch of salt.
Long ago a case report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine about an older man who had eaten at least 12-18 egg yolks (egg whites are OK!) daily for 30 years or so, and his cholesterol was normal, to amazement and astonishment of the authors of the paper, which was their basis for the case report. Against the conventional wisdom, doncha know!
Enjoy your fats! Just don’t pig out!
The Pillsbury pre-made, rolled pie pastry lets you have the best of both worlds. The work and mess are done but you get the satisfaction of fitting them into your pan and crimping the edge however you’d like. Nice and flaky. Look for them in the chiller case, beside the tubes of biscuits. They freeze well, so you always have one ready.
Huxley @ 7:56 p.m. – when you make that quiche don’t skimp on the cream and eggs. Use lots! But do limit the other ingredients…..just “suggest” ham, or spinach, or shrimp, or whatever. I get out my mom’s old egg beater – with the crank that you turn – and really go to town on the eggs and cream. Start your quiche in a hot oven on the lowest rack (makes the bottom crust flaky). After 20 minutes, lower the heat and raise the rack to the middle to finish cooking.
My grandfather always claimed that lard made the best pie crust.
(He wasn’t supposed to eat the stuff but he wasn’t going to deny the truth as he saw it, either.)
That being said, his wife (my grandma) never used it but was able to make terrific pie crust with crisco (now a no-no) or butter.
I have told our kids that I married AesopSpouse because he was the only man I knew at college who could bake a pie.
Number Two Son affirms that lard makes the best crust, but I’ve gone to the pre-made variety because we make them so seldom, and shouldn’t be eating pie at all.
We make pumpkin puddings fairly often, however. Same recipe as the pie, but without the crust, in a pie plate or individual ramekins.
Food processor works for more short, tart-like pie crust. It is impossible to keep the chunks of fat big enough for long- or medium-flake pastry – the food processor chops even the firmest, coldest shortening into small grains almost immediately.
Which is fine for the bottom crust of a pie – especially a fruit pie which really should use a tart-like pastry underneath. American flaky pie is a somewhat crazy idea.
To make flaky pastry for the pie top or for turnovers, I use the ziploc bag method.
Here is one very clear set of directions – with a great recipe enriched with cream cheese. The method can be used with any recipe.
http://joepastry.com/2008/how_to_make_pie_dough/
That blog is no longer active, but has a wealth of practical information from a former professional baker.
I made pie crust with the food processor. You very carefully add cold butter, cut in pieces, with very short bursts of power, just until lightly blended; there are still some small globs of butter.
All of our (non-Jewish) grandmothers used lard, and it was the best.
In a pinch I have made a pie crust out of crushed vanilla wafers or graham crackers mixed with softened butter. Mix it into a mash and then press it into the bottom of the pie pan. This is especially good with making a cheese cake.
Although, nowadays I usually just use a rolled, frozen pie crust. I do own a rolling pin, but I usually have too much clutter on my counter tops (and table!) to be able to roll out any dough.
And I am heartened by the other men commenting here about baking pies. My mother taught me how to bake pies, cakes, and cookies when I was just 8 years old. My father questioned why I wanted to learn to bake, as baking “was women’s work” as my father put it. I told my father that if I like to eat that stuff, I want to know how to make it!
I used to have a theory that if you make peanut-butter cookies, if you stir the batter by hand, then you will burn off as many calories as you will eat from the cookies. Unfortunately, that theory was proved false! But it is still a good workout.
Made a pie crust (graham cracker) and pie (key lime) from scratch for Thanksgiving. Turned out great. The crust held together very well when slicing and serving. Here’s the recipe I used: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/12254/graham-cracker-crust-i/
BenDavid, thanks for the joepastry link. That looks like a lot more work than my technique (which he refers to as “Grandma’s”, true in my case), but I can imagine it works well. I may try it next time, and I’ll poke around that website for other ideas.
I LOVE all of Centerville’s savory pies that are on shelf in the frozen area of the retail stores. It was an easy decision to purchase Centerville pie crusts when I spotted them in Market Basket & Shaw’s.
Best part…they only have 5 ingredients!!
Am including this link here because, as is well known, an army marches in its stomach (cf. the origin mayonnaise).
And what could be more essential than good piecrust?
(And what more important than the upcoming campaign…to save the country?)
“ The Fight Is Just Beginning”—
https://tomklingenstein.com/the-fight-is-just-beginning/
Introductory Editor’s Note:
H/T Powerline blog.
Oops!
Should be “…marches on its stomach…”
Commenter posted, “shouldn’t be eating pie at all.”
I don’t get the why of that.
I checked out this company and was tempted to buy one (they ship everywhere). But $75 per pie?? I’ll pass, thank you
Dr Bob:
I had no idea it was $75 – wow!!! They sell them in the grocery store here for something like $14. And the two frozen piecrusts I got were something like $5.99 for the pair.
Per the movie, Hit Man (good!), “All pie is good pie.”
I personally vouch for The Village Piemaker. Especially the strawberry rhubarb and cherry cheesecake. With shipping and 2 or more, the price is $45 per pie. In the local stores, it is $14 or $15. So, the shipping is a big cost.
https://www.villagepiemaker.com/shop
I have used and enjoyed the Pillsbury frozen roll-up pie crusts. Maybe not fabulous, but better than my own crust.
For a while HEB (a Texas local) carried “The Village Piemaker” crusts and pies, which really were fabulous. They still often have the whole pies. I recommend them highly for anyone who can get them.
A crumble crust that’s awfully easy and even better than crushed cookie-type crust: Place 1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 T lemon rind, salt to taste, and 80g of butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the motor running, add two egg yolks and process until well combined. Press into a cake tin lightly greased with butter and bake at 320F for 20–25 minutes or until light golden and firm to the touch. This was great with a mascarpone lemon filling.
I’ve often been tempted by mail-order frozen pies, but you pay through the nose for any individual shipping of a frozen product. Same for fresh produce through the mail. The only cost-efficient way to distribute refrigerated products is en masse to a grocery store.
Second the motion on butter or lard for pie crusts. Even using super-duper lard from the kidney area, though, my homemade crusts are nothing to write home about.
* Gluten Free * Award winning piecrust recipe I always use is “Mama Thornton’s Peach Pie” which you can find online, I use a food processor. I made it recently with Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour and it got rave reviews.