Where did that phrase come from? I've been baking for years and still can't make a decent pie crust every time! My friend Lara and I were rapping on the difficulty of making a piecrust, and her theory about the phrase was that it came from someone who was eating the pie, not making it.
My theory is different. You have to make piecrust by feel, not by measuring exact amounts. How much water you need depends on your flour, the room temperature and the humidity. Also, pie fillings tend to be forgiving with amounts. Throw in some fruit and a bunch of sugar or maybe an egg or two and -- bingo! -- you've got a pie. Cakes, on the other hand, are much pickier. If you don't have the oven hot enough or the leavening/ flour/ fat proportion right, they just don't work.
Back in the day, people learned how cook from their mothers, and they cooked more by feel than by measurement. Or if they did measure, the measures weren't standard: the amount in a tablespoon depended on the size of the spoons at your table. Even the cookbooks were written like this! The concept of standard measures didn't really catch on til Fanny Farmer published her cookbook in 1896. So up until then, it really was easier to make a pie than, say, a cake or a cream puff.
Well, that's my theory anyway.
I'd like to leave you with a fabulous piecrust recipe, but the only one I can personally guarantee is the Pillsbury crust in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Instead, I'll link you to my new favorite pie recipe:
Pumpkin Pie from Real Pumpkin is delicious, detailed, and works out great. (You'll have to scroll down to get to the recipe.) If you don't want a lot of extra filling, change the amounts to
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- a generous 1/2 teaspoon each of cloves and allspice
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups pumpkin puree
- 1 can evaporated milk
