The Pie Dictionary
Every term a chicken pie can throw at you, defined in plain English and linked to the recipes that use it.
- Baking weights
- Baking weights are small ceramic or metal balls used to hold pastry flat and in place while it blind bakes.
- Blind baking
- Blind baking is baking a pastry case empty, before the filling goes in, so the base sets and crisps instead of steaming under a wet filling.
- Coffyn
- A coffyn is the medieval English name for a thick, free-standing pastry case that served as both cooking vessel and storage container for a pie's filling.
- Crimping
- Crimping is sealing and decorating the edge of a pie by pressing the pastry layers together in a repeating pattern, with fingers or a fork.
- Docking
- Docking is pricking pastry all over with a fork or a spiked roller so steam can escape during baking and the pastry stays flat.
- Egg wash
- An egg wash is beaten egg, sometimes loosened with water or milk, brushed onto pastry before baking to give the surface color, shine, and a better seal.
- Filo pastry
- Filo is paper-thin sheets of unleavened dough, layered with melted butter or oil, that bake into a delicate, glassy crust.
- Galette
- A galette is a free-form, open-faced pie: a single round of pastry with the filling in the middle and the edges folded roughly over it.
- Hand pie
- A hand pie is a fully sealed, single-portion pie built to be eaten from the hand, with pastry sturdy enough to survive a lunchbox.
- Hot water crust
- Hot water crust is a sturdy pastry made by melting fat into boiling water and working it into flour, used for free-standing raised pies.
- Lamination
- Lamination is the technique of folding and rolling dough around butter to build many alternating layers, which bake into flaky, lifted pastry.
- Lard
- Lard is rendered pork fat, the traditional shortening of British pie pastry and the classic fat for hot water crust.
- Oven spring
- Oven spring is the rapid rise pastry or dough makes in its first minutes of baking, before the structure sets.
- Pie bird
- A pie bird, also called a pie funnel, is a hollow ceramic vent placed in the center of a pie that lets steam escape through its beak while supporting the lid.
- Pithivier
- A pithivier is a domed, free-form French pie made from two rounds of puff pastry sealed around a mounded filling, with spiral lines scored into the lid.
- Puff pastry
- Puff pastry is a fully laminated dough of hundreds of alternating butter and dough layers that bakes into a tall, shattering, flaky crust.
- Raised pie
- A raised pie is a tall, free-standing pie with hot water crust walls, shaped by hand or around a mold rather than baked in a dish.
- Rough puff pastry
- Rough puff is a shortcut puff pastry in which cold butter is left in visible lumps through the dough, then folded and rolled a few times to build flaky layers.
- Roux
- A roux is flour cooked briefly in fat, the starting point for thickening a pie filling so it stays saucy instead of watery.
- Scrap pastry
- Scrap pastry is the offcut dough left after cutting lids and lining dishes, which can be re-rolled once before it turns tough.
- Shortcrust pastry
- Shortcrust is a crumbly, tender pastry made by rubbing fat into roughly half its weight of flour, bound with a little cold water.
- Shortening
- Shortening is any solid fat used to tenderize pastry, though the word usually means manufactured vegetable fat with no water content.
- Soggy bottom
- A soggy bottom is the failure state in which a pie's base pastry stays pale, wet, and undercooked beneath the filling.
- Turnover
- A turnover is a single round or square of pastry folded in half over its filling, sealing it into a portable half-moon or triangle.
- Velouté
- A velouté is one of the French mother sauces: stock thickened with a roux, and the technical name for the sauce inside most chicken pies.