So I a little bit of a preamble here. I’ve always made pie crust the old-fashioned way with a pastry cutter and my hands. No real reason for this, just, it’s the way my grandmother did it, and I live in a small Brooklyn apartment and I don’t have a Cuisinart because I wouldn’t use it for that much and it’s not worth the cabinet space it would take up.

When I’ve made galettes in the past, which I’ve made with some frequency — they are about half of the work all of the satisfaction of making a pie — I’ve made a single crust by hand with a pastry cutter and not thought much about it. However, last weekend, I watched Claire Saffiz make Pop Tarts from scratch and in watching her tests and trials, it got me thinking about the optimal galette crust.