Drop Grandma’s Checklist

I started thinking about a Facebook status while I was mixing banana bread batter. My friend had admitted defeat in the battle of making pie crusts. I started thinking about my pie crust experiences and recipe. I haven’t made many pies in my life but the crust has been delicious each time. (This exception is the lack of beautiful, fluted edges. I blame my big fingers.) The recipe I use was written by Ina Garten. It is easy to follow yet specific. Overall, it hasn’t failed me yet.

Good recipes are more than ingredients and proportions; they have good instructions. Ina’s recipe instructs bakers to return the chopped butter to the refrigerator before cutting it in. She also notes to use iced water and store the dough in the fridge for even more chilling. The goal of these steps is to keep the butter cold so that it doesn’t melt until baking which results in the flaky crust Fat Tyler desires. Her extra steps ensure that the dough stays cold for all readers which is why it is a good recipe.

I found a few recipes from a cookbook that belonged to Beth’s grandma Leona that ironically was printed by the church Beth’s paternal grandma, Eileen, belonged to. All of the pie crust recipes, including “No-Fail Pie Crust” do not mention the temperature of the butter or at least creating the crust quickly. But they didn’t need to. These women could whip up a crust quickly and never had to worry about the butter melting. The problem is when I follow the recipe I’m not familiar or experienced with the process so I naturally take a longer time. Therefore my pie suffers. Their recipes were written for themselves so they naturally leave out information. After reading The Checklist Manifesto (I highly recommend it.), I now understand that checklists shouldn’t have every step listed, only those that are commonly missed. Your Grandma’s recipe is a checklist which makes for a poor recipe to hand down but a great document for her. 

I respect recipes handed down but I think that cooks & bakers need to understand that the reason grandma’s pie is delicious is because the majority of the recipe, specifically the steps, were in her head. And that she made the pie with a lot of love. I urge you to look at the recipes handed down to you by others and recognize when the nostalgia is outweighed by a poor product. Look for a better recipe that you can hand down to your family that will ensure they can show up at family gathering with a pie that will make everyone else’s look like shit. 

There are plenty of sources available for recipes that will make you look like a rockstar. My current favorites are Cooks Illustrated & King Arthur Flour. Recipes from them are tested thoroughly by qualified people that want to ensure you can recreate their products. They use science and a lot of tests until a recipe is foolproof. You can’t say that about grandma can you?

For the record, my Grandma Neu’s apple pie still makes me giddy even if “mine” is better.