can anyone tell me why when i make pies (all-butter crust) and scones, they always bubble and seep butter?? its driving me crazy, lol! i plan on making *another* batch of scones tonight but was hoping someone can tell me what i am doing wrong first...thanks!

check out the blog and site pastrychefonline.com - she's AWESOME and somewhere on her blog she actually talks about that - I just can't remember what she said. Good luck

I think your butter is too soft or gets too soft/warm when you're making your stuff. Butter has a ton of water in it and you gotta use it/keep it cold for those applications.

Lemme know what the pastry chef says.

yes, I'm by no means a pastry expert, but I've learned that butter doughs want to be cold all the way through the process. My favorite pie recipe calls for refrigerating the whole pie for an hour before baking....both the let the dough rest again, and to re-firm the butter so it can do it's job in the dough before it has a chance to melt.

im wondering if the peices of butter in the dough are to big, leaving to much of a good thing in one place so it lets off to much steam and oil in one spot, does that make sense?

Is there a prize if we get it right?

lol! i was gonna say the prize is one of my pies...but my pies are badddd. geeze, i have no idea where the phrase "easy as pie" comes from.

anyways, checked out the blog but couldn't find the info. i looked around the net a bit and came across a discussion where they said the oven has to be really hot or the butter seeps?? so i guess its along the same lines as you guys saying the butter is too warm? gonna try making some scones and refriderating the dough...wish me luck and thanks for responding so quickly!

If you use all butter, you should keep the butter cold at all times...After you cut it into the flour refrigerate the dough for at least half an hour before you roll it out. That will give the butter time to firm up and will also let the flour absorb moisture so that it will roll out better. After you roll it out, refrigerate it again before you bake it. That will also keep it from shrinking as much. Make sure the oven temp is where it should be, not just warming up.

You can also use half and half butter and shortening to reduce the seepage.

Same thing happened to me -croissants in Louisiana in August! They were sitting in a pool of melted butter before they were even in the oven I was only 17, so I chalk it up to an embarrassing dose of experience.

The butter and the entire item has to be ice cold, as everyone stated above AND your oven has to be hot -definitely 375-400F or above. In a slow oven, even with cold butter pieces, it will slowly melt. To create the flakiness, the little butter pieces need to quickly evaporate the water to create a burst of steam, which makes those little air pockets in crust, scones, etc. I mix, refrigerate, roll, refrigerate, form, refrigerate, fill pie, refrigerate. My aunt (making lard crusts) used to roll and form hers in pie tins, then wrap and freeze them until she needed them for an order. Then, just fill and bake while the crust was still frozen. They were always perfectly flaky

Lard will definitely give you a flakier crust than butter, too. I made cinnamon rolls with lard for a brunch once, and everyone said they were the best they'd ever had, and how had I made them?? I told them they didn't want to know, ha ha ha! Lard...lard...lard...The word just sounds gross, but it does make a flaky crust!

so sorry the blog didn't help - i went and re read it and she did talk about making sure everything was ice cold and to not over mix

here's a peach pie tutorial, it might help

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/04/17/0417-iron-chef-a-peach-of-a-pie/#more-4444

So what flavor pies do we get to choose from???

keep your butter "super" cold when adding it to the flour. I used a cheese grater to cut it into the flour and handle as little as possible. Refrigerate the dough to get it nice and cold again before rolling. I use this method when making baking powder biscuits and they rise and are the flakiest ever. Good luck with it...

My pastry chef from Culinary school stressed keeping everything cool the whole length of the process. Use frozen butter/lard if you can, and a great trick to getting it the right size: use a cheese grater and chill it down again after you've grated it. But definitely make sure you chill the pie down after having formed it before you bake it.

Hope this helps.

Here's another dealio about biscuits & scones--if you want them to rise the best use a sharp cutter to cut them out.

That's gotta be worth two flavors now

I'm going with fudge and can't decide, no I got it blueberry (from fresh bberries)

Hey, Dailey-ness, I was just up there last week--drove up for my bro's 60th surprise b-day party in Schererville.

thanks again everyone!!! so many great tips for next time. and i definitely NEED them, the pies turned out HORRIBLE! the crust on the blueberry pie was tough and chewy, you couldn't even cut it with the fork. and the apple pie crust was soggy and flavorless??? ugh. straight into the garbage they went. i wanted to give them to the dog but my dad couldn't believe i would be so cruel, lol!

hey kate, your were a hop, skip and a jump away from me here in CP! where did you all go to celebrate? i think Tieble's (sp?) is still pretty popular in schererville.

I also have a recipe that used some vodka for the liquid in the pie dough recipe. It makes a very light , flaky dough that is very easy to work with.