My sister swore by cold butter for pie crust. I fought her for years until I tried it last weekend.

I always used room temperature butter in my pie crust because I thought it mixed in easier. My sister kept telling me I was wrong (she's a pastry chef, so I should have listened). Last Sunday I finally followed her advice and used butter straight from the fridge. The crust came out flaky and tender in a way I never got before with my old method. I actually timed it and my prep only took 3 extra minutes for the extra cutting. Has anyone else had a stubborn baking habit that they finally gave up on?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana554d ago

Oh I had the same fight with my husband about chilling cookie dough before baking. He thought it was a waste of time and just wanted to get cookies in the oven as fast as possible. Finally one Saturday I made two batches of chocolate chip dough exactly the same way, but one went straight into the oven and the other sat in the fridge for an hour. The chilled batch spread less, had a nicer chewy texture, and the flavor was just deeper somehow. He ate three of the chilled ones before I even told him what I did. Now he won't let me skip the refrigerating step even when we're in a rush.

patricia3854d ago

Took my mom about a decade to switch from margarine to butter in her cookies. She swore the texture was the same until I baked a batch with butter and put them next to hers, completely unlabeled. She picked mine first and asked what I did different. I mean, the margarine ones were fine but the butter ones had that rich melt in your mouth thing going on. She still uses butter now but she won't admit I was right.