Apple Pie

Egg wash & the baker’s shine 34 recipes

• Applied thin and even over every surface that will show, with no bare patches and no ridges or brush lines standing in it.
• Nothing pooled: no wash run down into the seams, collected in the corners, or welded to the tray around the base.
• It has not glued shut what needs to move: layers, scores, and cut edges are still free to open in the heat.
• Baked, the finish is even and glossy across the whole piece and deep gold rather than patchy, with no darker bands where the wash sat heavy.
• The shine is on the outside only: nothing inside the piece tastes of egg.

Where it goes wrong The wash went on heavy and ran into the scores and down to the tray, so the piece baked sealed along its seams, browned unevenly, and carries dark rubbery ridges where the egg collected.

Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes

• The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
• Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
• Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
• Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
• Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.

Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.