Booze Up Your Pie!

[Ben]

Has anyone ever heard of substituting some of the water in pie dough with vodka? I just saw a link to this article, and I'd never heard of doing this before. I wonder if it would also be a positive for biscuits?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/24/the-scientific-reason-you-should-put-booze-into-your-pies%E2%80%8B/

[BobR]

I have heard of it before, never tried though. If Pillsbury doesn't use it, neither do I.

I am not sure the amount of alcohol you would need in biscuits would have time to cook off. A pie normally cooks 45 minutes or so, giving time for the heat to cook off the alcohol where most biscuits cook around 12 minutes or a touch longer.

bob

[MillCreek]

I have done this before with vodka, and it does make a good pie crust.  I still like my vinegar and egg crust recipe better, though: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/vinegar-and-egg-crust/ .  The vinegar has much the same function as the vodka.

[Chuck Dye]

We have used rum in a cranberry hazelnut pie, brandy in a mincemeat pie.  Both worked as advertised.  While the brandy flavor was completely hidden by the mincemeat, the dark rum turned out to be too much flavor for the cranberry hazelnut.  Vodka or white rum definitely would have been a better choice for that pie.

[vaskidmark]

I used to make bundt cakes using rum for all the called-for liquid.  It probably would have been a good idea to warn the agency Director when he grabbed 2 slices on his way to a meeting with the County Board of Supervisors.  OTOH he did say it was the best meeting he had ever attended.  The mass of the cake was enough to keep all the rum's alcohol evaporating.

Mom used to start fruit cakes the week after Christmas.  Wrapped them in cheesecloth after baking, and stuffed them into cookie tins.  Poured booze over the cheesecloth till it started showing in the "well" in the middle of the fruitcake.  Put them in the warm pantry and checked weekly, topping them up as needed.  50 weeks later they were much more potent than the rum balls made the previous day.  Not only were they not re-gifted but word and taste of mouth created requests for a fruitcake next year.

stay safe.

[BobR]

I used to do the same thing with fruit cakes but made them in Oct for Dec. Maybe I should start earlier. 


bob

[just Warren]

Has anyone ever heard of substituting some of the water in pie dough with vodka? I just saw a link to this article, and I'd never heard of doing this before. I wonder if it would also be a positive for biscuits?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/24/the-scientific-reason-you-should-put-booze-into-your-pies%E2%80%8B/

Ben's Boozecuits?

[lupinus]

Interesting. I'd personally think a proper pie dough has so little water in it, and handled properly worked so little, that it wouldn't make much if any difference. But certainly can't hurt either. Think I'll stick to my classic french dough variations.

Now booze in the pie. Booze in the filling always makes a pie better. Sweet potato and spiced rum in a pate brisee crust and we're talkin.

[charby]

You do need some water/liquid to make the gluten sticky. If you use too much booze, they dough may not stick together when baked.

[zxcvbob]

I have heard of it before, never tried though. If Pillsbury doesn't use it, neither do I.

I am not sure the amount of alcohol you would need in biscuits would have time to cook off. A pie normally cooks 45 minutes or so, giving time for the heat to cook off the alcohol where most biscuits cook around 12 minutes or a touch longer.

bob

The booze in a pie crust won't cook off because there's no place for it to go.  It's trapped between the pan and the filling.  It will just cook into the bottom half of the pie.  It's not *much* alcohol (about 1/4 cup of 80 proof in a single-crust pie) but I wouldn't serve it to an alky. 
Almost all the booze in the top crust (if there is a top crust) will cook off.

[Hawkmoon]

Never heard of booze in a pie crust, but my grandfather's favorite holiday pie was mincemeat, spiked with brandy. My mother always made him one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas. He always told her to "let the bottle slip."