A retired baker in Tulsa told me my butter was too cold, and she was right

I was pulling a batch of pie dough together at the farmers market last Saturday when a woman named Ruth stopped and watched me for a minute. She said my butter was still fridge cold and that's why the dough kept cracking at the edges, then she had me grate the butter on a box grater instead. I tried it that week with a 1/2 cup of frozen butter and the crust came out flaky for the first time in months. She also said her mom ran a bakery for 22 years and never once used a food processor. Does anyone else still cut butter in by hand, or am I just behind the times?

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noahhall8d ago

Temperature control matters way more than the tool you use. Your hands are basically a thermostat, so when you cut butter in by hand you can feel when it starts to soften and stop before it gets greasy. A food processor spins so fast it can warm the butter and smear it into the flour before you even know what happened. That is why Ruth's mom never used one, not because she was old school but because she could not feel the dough through a plastic lid. The grating trick works for the same reason, it keeps the butter cold while breaking it into small pieces fast. So no, you are not behind the times, you just learned the thing that most recipes leave out.

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