My aunt told me my pie crust was tough, and she was right

I brought an apple pie to Thanksgiving last year and my aunt said 'your crust is like cardboard.' She bakes pies for a living out of her kitchen in Des Moines. So after 3 tries I finally stopped overworking the dough and switched to ice cold butter. Has anyone else had a relative just tell you straight up what you were doing wrong?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_singh1mo ago

My grandma once told me my chocolate chip cookies tasted like "sweetened cardboard" so I feel your pain. It turned out I was using margarine instead of real butter because I thought it was healthier. She pulled out her own bag of chips and butter and made me watch her do it step by step while she talked about the texture. Took me another two batches after that to get it right but now my cookies are actually good. Sometimes you just need someone to be brutally honest before you figure out the little things that matter.

tarajenkins1mo ago

Blame the butter police, @phoenix_singh, but margarine is basically regret in a tub.

ericgonzalez1mo ago

Damn that's a great story. Your grandma sounds like a real one. I had a similar thing with my mom's meatloaf recipe, she never wrote down the measurements and I used too much breadcrumbs for like a YEAR before she finally told me it was dry. She stood right there and showed me the exact handful she uses, even made me feel the texture of the mix before it went in the pan. Two tries later and now my meatloaf actually holds together but stays moist. It's wild how ONE ingredient swap or measurement can mess everything up. Glad you stuck with it through those two extra batches.