As much as I love to bake, I really don’t love making pie crusts or other doughs like shortbreads because I have a terrible time getting the right consistency to the dough. When my grandmother taught me how to make a pie crust, she had this fantastic old pastry blender that looked a little like a wider, flatter whisk. But she told me that if I didn’t have one of those, I could use two knives or two forks to get “essentially” the same result when mixing butter into flour. Well, that knife and fork method just never worked that well for me and I usually ended up with a big sticky or crumbly mess.
Enter my new tool of the trade:
Photo courtesy of Williams-Sonoma, http://www.williamssonoma.com
I recently received this beautiful new pastry blender as a gift and I have a feeling Thanksgiving pies will be a breeze this year. It quickly slices through squares of butter and distributes them throughout your flour mixture in no time. The handle is contoured so you have a nice little resting place for your thumb as you press down and the blades are just sharp enough to do all the heavy lifting for you. I am definitely one who believes in as little kitchen clutter as possible, but I’m sure this Tool of the Trade will be a helpful addition to my toolbox for years to come.
I have a similar pastry blender, and I find it slightly annoying. The butter/fat/lard tends to get stuck between the grooves, sticking to itself rather than separating into pieces and combining with the flour. I generally need to stop a few times and scrape the fat off of the blades. I hope you have better luck with it….
Hi Celeste,
For me, this is a huge step up from the knife and fork method, so I’m happy with it. The trick to a good pie crust is to keep everything cold, so I never want to get in there with my warm hands and mix it together. Perhaps if you put the cutter, the flour mixture and the butter in the fridge to get it all really really cold before you start the sticking won’t be such a problem. Thanks for your comment and good luck to you too!