The Pie Dictionary

Every term a chicken pie can throw at you, defined in plain English and linked to the recipes that use it.

Bake from frozen: Bake from frozen is the method of putting a fully assembled, frozen unbaked pie straight into a hot oven without thawing, so the pastry sets before the fat can melt out and the filling heats through as it bakes.
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.
Carryover cooking: Carryover cooking is the continued rise in a food's internal temperature after it is removed from the oven, caused by residual heat travelling from the hot outer layers toward the cooler centre.
Chilling and resting: Chilling and resting is the practice of refrigerating pastry dough between stages of work so that the fat firms up and the gluten relaxes, making the dough easier to roll and less likely to shrink in the oven.
Cobbler topping: A cobbler topping is a lid of soft scone or biscuit dough dropped or arranged in rounds over a filling and baked, giving a pie-like dish without rolled pastry.
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.
Dumpling topping: A dumpling topping is a set of balls of soft dough, traditionally made with suet, simmered or baked on the surface of a stew so they cook in the steam and juices of the filling beneath.
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.
Gluten development: Gluten development is the formation of an elastic protein network when the glutenin and gliadin in wheat flour are hydrated and worked, which gives dough strength and stretch but makes pastry tough if taken too far.
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.
Jelly: Jelly, in raised pie making, is a gelatine-rich savoury stock poured into the baked pie through a hole in the lid, where it sets as the pie cools and fills the gap left by the shrinking filling.
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.
Letter fold: A letter fold is a lamination fold in which a sheet of dough is folded in thirds like a business letter, tripling the number of fat and dough layers with each turn.
Oven spring: Oven spring is the rapid rise pastry or dough makes in its first minutes of baking, before the structure sets.
Pastry brake: A pastry brake is a machine with a pair of adjustable rollers that sheets dough to a precise, even thickness, used in bakeries in place of hand rolling.
Pate brisee: Pate brisee is the French equivalent of shortcrust pastry, made with a higher proportion of butter and sometimes enriched with egg, giving a crust that is richer and more tender than a standard shortcrust.
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.
Pie collar: A pie collar is a strip or ring of aluminium foil placed over the exposed rim of a pie during baking to shield the crust edge from direct heat and stop it browning before the rest of the pie is done.
Pie plate vs pie dish: A pie plate is a shallow pan with sloped sides used for pies with a pastry base, while a pie dish is a deeper vessel, often with a rim, used for pies covered with a pastry lid only.
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.
Rubbing in: Rubbing in is the technique of working cold fat into flour with the fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, which coats the flour in fat and limits gluten development for a tender, crumbly pastry.
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.
Steam vent: A steam vent is a hole or slit cut in the top crust of a pie to let steam escape during baking, preventing the lid from ballooning, cracking, or going soggy underneath.
Suet pastry: Suet pastry is a soft British dough made from flour, shredded beef or vegetarian suet, and cold water, giving a tender, slightly spongy crust that suits steamed and baked savoury puddings and pies.
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.