I am a huge fan of the pies from the Southern Baked Pie Company. What I love most is their buttery flaky pie crust. I was wondering if you might share their recipe and any tips for baking flaky pie crust? Thanks in advance!
– Aubrey Lenyard, Decatur
Amanda Dalton Wilbanks founded Southern Baked Pie Company in 2012, creating a business that offers sweet and savory pies baked in an all-butter pie dough. She’s shared the recipe in her cookbook, “Southern Baked: Celebrating Life with Pie,” (Gibbs Smith, $24.99). In the book, she credits her mother-in-law, Sandy Wilbanks, for providing her first lessons in making pie dough and sharing the recipe.
Some of her tips for flaky crusts include working with cold ingredients. She says she even chills the flour, salt and sugar and adds ice cubes to the 1/4 cup cold water to make sure the water is icy cold. She cautions against adding too much water to the dough and suggests working the dough as little as possible. She likes to roll out her crusts between two sheets of parchment paper, rolling from the center then working out to the edges. After every roll, she gives the dough a quarter turn to end up with an even circle. The finished thickness should be 1/8-inch. If you like to work ahead, Wilbanks suggests you make the dough, roll out the crusts, put them in pie plates and flute the edges, then wrap in plastic wrap and over-wrap with foil. Protected this way, they can be frozen for up to six months.
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Southern Baked Pie Company. 4300 Paces Ferry Road SE, Atlanta. 404-263-0820, southernbakedpie.com.
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