Pastry Pie Crust

I wish my Grandma was still alive so she could teach me how to make a pie crust and also to teach me how to sew. This is a reminder to all of you to remember to listen to the wisdom of your grandparents and to let them teach you traditions. I loved my grandparents and remember the tastes and smells of their kitchen, but I never learned how they did what they did. I wish I could go back in time. For now, I’ll just hold onto those memories and try to recreate some of the recipes that I don’t have.

This was the first time I experimented with this pie crust. It is from my first and most trusted cookbook, The Bride and Groom First and Forever Cookbook. I had to bake my pumpkin pie longer than expected so the crust got a little overcooked. This pie crust was still flaky and tasted delicious. I used my homemade rendered lard and it worked great and this was also so easy to make in my food processor. This makes one pie crust so if baking a pie that needs a top crust, double the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour or sprouted red hard spring wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon pure cane sugar or Rapadura
• 1 teaspoon course sea salt
• 5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
• 4 tablespoons lard
• 4 – 4 1/2 tablespoons cold ice water

Directions

In a food processor, add in flour, sugar and salt and pulse briefly to combine.

Place the butter in small pieces in and all around the flour mixture. Pulse 5 times at 1 second intervals.

Place the lard all around the mixture and pulse 4 times at 1 second intervals.

Sprinkle 4 tablespoons cold water over the mixture and pulse until dough starts to combine, about 6 times.

Pinch a small amount of dough together and if it sticks together, it is ready, if not, add 1/2 more tablespoon water and pulse 3 more times.

When dough holds together in between fingers, it is ready. Do not form a ball in the food processor.

Place dough on a large piece of Saran Wrap and form a 5-inch disk. Fold over Saran Wrap to cover the disk.

Place in refrigerator for 45 minutes or up to 2 days or frozen for 3 months.

Take daughter on Starbucks run. It will make pie crust taste better.

When ready to bake pie, remove from refrigerator and let warm up at room temperature for 10-15 minutes.

Roll out dough and transfer to a buttered pie plate.

If recipe calls for prebaking (blind baking, parbaking), refrigerate crust for 45 minutes to 1 hour after it’s been placed in the pie plate.

Remove pie crust from refrigerator and place aluminum foil ring on crust edges (as shown above) and prebake according to recipe instructions or for 17 minutes on 425 degrees.

Proceed with pie/pastry recipe!