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In addition to humanodon's fine advice, I will also add: 1) The more you work any kind of dough, the tougher it will get. You want to go with the absolute minimum. 2) Butter should be cold-cold. Super-cold isn't that important. Working quickly is. You should go from ingredients to rolling in about 4-5 minutes tops. 3) I know Alton Brown hates the shit out of "uni-taskers" (but have you ever seen his measuring cups? WTF) but a pastry cutter is impossibly handy if you're going to make pastry. We've got a wire one very like this. I guess Oxo has a fancier one for ten bucks. Never used it. "Marble sized chunks" is bullshit. you want aquarium gravel or smaller, and you can't get that without a pastry cutter.