Chilling step a crucial one for pie dough (2024)

TEST KITCHEN

By DANIELLE CENTONI

Special to The Oregonian

Q: Why do pie dough recipes always require the dough to chill in the refrigerator for an hour or two? Chilling it that long makes it too hard to roll out anyway. Can I skip this step?

A:

The funny thing about baking is even the things that seem finicky and nonsensical have a purpose. It's annoying to have to chill pie dough, only to have to let it sit out at room temperature for 5 or 10 minutes until it's pliable enough to roll out. Why not just roll it out right away?

Turns out, chilling dough before rolling does two things: The most important is that it gives the gluten strands in the dough time to relax, which makes the pastry easier to roll out and limits shrinkage during baking.

The other reason is that giving dough a good rest encourages the moisture to disperse more evenly. When you add water to the dough you can't help but end up with areas that are slightly wetter or drier than others. You don't want to keep mixing the dough to even this out because that will activate even more gluten and make it tough. Too much mixing also warms things up, causing the butter in the dough to melt and thereby reducing the pastry's flakiness.

So once the dough is moistened enough to be gathered and shaped into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap or wax paper and refrigerate it for an hour. During that time the moisture will redistribute itself, the gluten fibers will relax and the butter will firm up again. Your dough will then be easier to roll out and will bake up properly.

Danielle Centoni

is a Portland freelance writer.

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