This is how my day has been today...
I have had pasta for two of three meals (and one WASN'T lunch).
just sat in a meeting about gifted education. The presenter had us do an interpretation exercise of a Wiley Comic. She actually said, "It's important for teachers to take every answer with equal weight and not say things are wrong." Because the fragile flower gifted kids have issues with risk taking and perfectionism.
WHAT? You know what that results in? 12th grade AP students who try to argue that Emily Dickinson was really writing about aliens because all interpretations are valid. Just No. Being wrong is okay. It happens to most of us. Suck it up, buttercup, because some interpretations are WRONG.
"It's important for teachers to take every answer with equal weight and not say things are wrong."
I sincerely hope this was not a meeting which included chemistry teachers.
Jessica, was it super airy? Like whipped? Maybe overworked the dough?
It did, Jessica. Any teacher who teaches gifted kids. I mean, really? Such CRAP. I was so angry.
Jessica, was it super airy? Like whipped? Maybe overworked the dough?
Yeah, exactly - I was very dubious about the time they wanted me to process it, and the amount of liquid it calls for, and now I'm pretty sure I was right on both counts. (Also, shortening is gross. Back to all-butter crusts for me.)
I've looked at the recipe before (we never have vodka in the house so it's not one I think to make) and I kept thinking how weird that it wanted you to handle it so much.
Also, shortening is gross. Back to all-butter crusts for me.
My never-fail crust is from CI's The Best Recipe. Calls for a lot of butter, but also shortening. And shortening is what gives the crust its flakiness. Butter for flavor, shortening for flakiness, that's what I always heard.
In general, for pie crusts, anything that calls for a lot of handling is a bad idea: it's the opposite of bread dough that way. And it's why I prefer to make my crusts by hand; well, that and that I don't own a food processor.
And shortening is what gives the crust its flakiness. Butter for flavor, shortening for flakiness, that's what I always heard.
Alton Brown told me the opposite! Butter for flakiness, shortening for tenderness. (My standby pie crust is AB's recipe which pulverizes about a third of the butter in the food processor before cutting in the rest, so you get some teeny evenly distributed globules of fat for tenderness plus some of big flat uneven pieces of butter for flakiness.)
Next time I may try the AB recipe but with vodka instead of water. Hmmmm...
anything that calls for a lot of handling is a bad idea
That's what the vodka is supposed to fix - because it doesn't form long gluten strands the way water does, you can work the dough to death and it won't get tough.
Seriously, tho, that's really bad. I was a special flower gifted child, and being wrong is half the fun! 'Cause then you learn something. Which you didn't know! Or you wouldn't have been wrong to begin with!
