Gluten-Free Graham Cracker Pie Crust
So I've been reading this food blog, Mike's Table, and came across his recipe for homemade graham cracker pie crust, where you make the crust from scratch rather than buying graham crackers, crushing them up, and adding butter.
http://mikes-table.themulligans.org/2008/06/18/graham-cracker-pie-crust/
It occurred to me that it would be pretty easy to make this gluten-free, so my GF friends could enjoy my fabulous pumpkin cream pie. So last night I attempted it, and it turned out pretty well. I cut the recipe in half, as I only needed one pie crust.
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/8 cup sugar
1/8 cup honey
3/4 cups white rice flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Here are the instructions from the Mike's Table blog:
Let the butter come to room temperature (figure 30-60 minutes out of the fridge). In a large bowl, mix both kinds of flour, salt, and cinnamon. Then, in the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Once it is, add in both kinds of sugar and keep mixing until it all blends together well, after which, you should add in the honey until well mixed. Add about half of the dry mixture into the butter mix, mixing until fully combined, after which, you should add the remaining dry mix, continuing the mix until this is all fully incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl down to get everything in there if you need to.
Lay out some plastic wrap and transfer your dough onto it. Make an effort to flatten it out into a disk, but don’t worry about making it super thin yet. It might be a little tacky, so just do the best you can. Wrap this up tightly and transfer to the fridge for at least an hour so that the dough can firm up. When you come back to the dough, set it out on your countertop. Normally, you should work on a lightly floured surface, blah blah, but I found something that I think is tremendously easier and cleaner. Keep the dough on top of the plastic wrap. Lightly dust the exposed surface of the dough with some flour and put another piece of plastic wrap on top of it (so you have a plastic wrap, dough, plastic wrap sandwich). Now, roll it out to be as thin as you can manage (like 1/8 inch thick) with your rolling pin-no sticking!
Remove the top layer of plastic wrap. Put your pie pan upside down on top of the rolled out dough and with a sharp knife, cut out a circle about 1 inch wider than the widest part of your pie pan. Move the excess dough out of your way. Now, with your pie pan still upside down on top of the dough, carefully, lift your circle of dough and pan using the bottom layer of plastic wrap (woo hoo, no dough breaking in half!). Carefully flip this all over so the whole thing is right side up, peel off the plastic, and gently slide the dough into the pan so that it fits it nicely. Is that a perfect fit, or what? No pressing, no cracks, no tears, and no flour all over the countertop. [If you do get cracks or tears, they are easily repaired with by pressing in the excess dough.]
Trim any excess off the lip of your pan with a sharp knife and clean it up as necessary to look pretty.
If you have excess dough, simply form another ball and roll it out again to make another crust (or graham crackers!). As for cooking the crust, you’ll usually want to prebake this before you put whatever pie filling inside. This means refrigerating briefly (5 minutes or so after all of this handling the dough), pricking the crust all over with a fork (or it will bubble and burst in the oven), and cooking in a 325°F oven for about 18 minutes. Let it cool on a rack and then you can move on to the rest of your dessert, whatever it may be...
[I should have covered the exposed edge of the pie crust with some foil while baking the pumpkin cream pie, because it overcooked with teh second baking.]
I got great feedback on this crust from my GF friends. Also, it was pretty easy to make. :)
http://mikes-table.themulligans.org/2008/06/18/graham-cracker-pie-crust/
It occurred to me that it would be pretty easy to make this gluten-free, so my GF friends could enjoy my fabulous pumpkin cream pie. So last night I attempted it, and it turned out pretty well. I cut the recipe in half, as I only needed one pie crust.
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/8 cup sugar
1/8 cup honey
3/4 cups white rice flour
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Here are the instructions from the Mike's Table blog:
Let the butter come to room temperature (figure 30-60 minutes out of the fridge). In a large bowl, mix both kinds of flour, salt, and cinnamon. Then, in the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Once it is, add in both kinds of sugar and keep mixing until it all blends together well, after which, you should add in the honey until well mixed. Add about half of the dry mixture into the butter mix, mixing until fully combined, after which, you should add the remaining dry mix, continuing the mix until this is all fully incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl down to get everything in there if you need to.
Lay out some plastic wrap and transfer your dough onto it. Make an effort to flatten it out into a disk, but don’t worry about making it super thin yet. It might be a little tacky, so just do the best you can. Wrap this up tightly and transfer to the fridge for at least an hour so that the dough can firm up. When you come back to the dough, set it out on your countertop. Normally, you should work on a lightly floured surface, blah blah, but I found something that I think is tremendously easier and cleaner. Keep the dough on top of the plastic wrap. Lightly dust the exposed surface of the dough with some flour and put another piece of plastic wrap on top of it (so you have a plastic wrap, dough, plastic wrap sandwich). Now, roll it out to be as thin as you can manage (like 1/8 inch thick) with your rolling pin-no sticking!
Remove the top layer of plastic wrap. Put your pie pan upside down on top of the rolled out dough and with a sharp knife, cut out a circle about 1 inch wider than the widest part of your pie pan. Move the excess dough out of your way. Now, with your pie pan still upside down on top of the dough, carefully, lift your circle of dough and pan using the bottom layer of plastic wrap (woo hoo, no dough breaking in half!). Carefully flip this all over so the whole thing is right side up, peel off the plastic, and gently slide the dough into the pan so that it fits it nicely. Is that a perfect fit, or what? No pressing, no cracks, no tears, and no flour all over the countertop. [If you do get cracks or tears, they are easily repaired with by pressing in the excess dough.]
Trim any excess off the lip of your pan with a sharp knife and clean it up as necessary to look pretty.
If you have excess dough, simply form another ball and roll it out again to make another crust (or graham crackers!). As for cooking the crust, you’ll usually want to prebake this before you put whatever pie filling inside. This means refrigerating briefly (5 minutes or so after all of this handling the dough), pricking the crust all over with a fork (or it will bubble and burst in the oven), and cooking in a 325°F oven for about 18 minutes. Let it cool on a rack and then you can move on to the rest of your dessert, whatever it may be...
[I should have covered the exposed edge of the pie crust with some foil while baking the pumpkin cream pie, because it overcooked with teh second baking.]
I got great feedback on this crust from my GF friends. Also, it was pretty easy to make. :)