Last year I heard about Cooks Illustrated Test Kitchen coming up with the secret to the flakiest pie crust ever--vodka. Today I tested it in the Mary Farrell Haphazard Cooking Kitchen making a crust for this broccoli quiche.
The challenge in making pie crust is to get the dough to hold together with a minimum of handling. The gluten strands you want when kneading bread will toughen your pie crust. I'm always tempted to add an extra tablespoon or two of water to pull the ingredients together, but that also toughens the texture.
The folks at Cooks Illustrated solved this problem by using a liquid that would help form the dough and then disappear in the baking. They tried a number of different alcohols and settled on vodka because it is colorless and odorless. The alcohol evaporates in the oven. My crust came out more tough than flaky, but I think it was the baker rather than the recipe. I'm planning to weight the flour next time, as I think my measuring might have been off.
The recipe with photos: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/11/pie-crust-101/
A few more tips. http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-review-vodka-pie-crust-68851
Try it this Thanksgiving and let me know how it works.
