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Chef on Call: Making Perfect Pies

Rose Levy Beranbaum, author of the landmark "Pie and Pastry Bible," gives District resident Sarah Fairbrother a lesson in making pies.

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Beranbaum gets that concept.

"I used to do unnecessary things, so I hate telling people to do unnecessary things," she said, letting on that she knew her meticulousness sometimes goes too far. "I once took the weight of beans every hour to see just exactly at what point they stopped absorbing water," she said with a giggle.

Teacher and student stood side by side and started making a two-crust batch of flaky cream cheese pie crust, Beranbaum's favorite, which would be used for three kinds of pie. It's not as flaky and crisp as an all-butter crust, but it has a delicious extra tang and doesn't distort much during baking.

To the classic ingredients of cream cheese pastry (cream cheese, butter, flour), she added vinegar to relax the dough when it is rolled out, cream to impart extra richness and baking powder to make it puff up in the oven, which translates into greater tenderness.

All ingredients were kept cold at all times and combined in a food processor as minimally and quickly as possible. Beranbaum said that if you process the dough too much, you lose flakiness, but if you don't process it enough, big clumps of butter become holes in the rolled-out dough.

"As soon as you can gather the dough together, then you knead it just slightly," Beranbaum explained. She recommends wearing food-safe latex gloves to do so (keeping hands cool) and preferably working on a cool counter. "When you're finished and you pull it, there should be a slight elasticity, just slight. You see all the nice buttery streaks, but it doesn't just break apart. Don't handle it much more after that."

She wrapped the kneaded dough in plastic, formed it into a disk and relegated it to the refrigerator for a 45-minute rest, long enough to help make the dough easier to roll out and less elastic, to reduce shrinkage during baking. Fairbrother did the same with her half of the dough.

What was truly amazing about the dough was that it was already cool at that point; cool enough, in fact, that it could have been rolled out right then, formed and sent to the fridge for resting.

Beranbaum deemed 65 degrees the right temperature for dough that is to be rolled out. (If it has been refrigerated overnight rather than for 45 minutes, she suggests leaving it out for 10 minutes.)

The rolling-out process, done in strokes from the dough's center that stopped short of the edges, was a breeze, thanks to a few bakers' helpers. Beranbaum placed a canvas pastry cloth rubbed with flour underneath the dough and covered the rolling pin with a cloth sleeve, both of which prevent sticking and overuse of flour. Fitted, 1/8 -inch-thick rings placed on the ends of the pin ensured the crust would be rolled to an even thickness.

"When you can't roll it any thinner, you're done," she said.

The hardest part was over.