My pie crusts used to taste like cardboard until I stopped overworking the dough last Thanksgiving

For years I made pie crust the way my grandma taught me, which meant kneading it until it felt smooth and even. Last Thanksgiving I made three pies for a family dinner in Nashville and every single crust came out tough and dense. My aunt took one bite and asked if I used shortening or lard, which I took as a polite way of saying it was terrible. A friend at work told me I was probably mixing it too much and breaking down the butter too fine. So for Christmas I tried a new method where I left pea sized chunks of butter in the dough and barely touched it. The difference was night and day, the crust actually flaked apart instead of crumbling into dust. Has anyone else realized their grandma's baking advice was actually making things worse?

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thompson.tyler2d ago

Oh man, I gotta disagree a little bit here. My grandma's crust recipe is basically sacred in our family and it's always about barely mixing it, like you said. I think maybe your grandma was just one of those old school bakers who thought you had to beat dough into submission. Some of their methods definitely don't hold up.