Best-ever Pie Crust
maxine July 17th, 2008
The secret is lard! If you can get your hands on organic or non-hydrogenated lard, use that. If you just can’t come to terms with rendered pig fat, use vegetable shortening. The key to good pie pastry is handling it as little as possible. You want lumps of fat floating around in your dough, because that’s what makes those deliciously flaky layers, so avoid the temptation to overwork the dough! Also, make sure to let it rest so that the flour can have time to absorb the moisture, or you’ll end up with dry, crumbly crust.
Makes 2 pie crusts (enough dough for 1 double-crust pie, 1 lattice-topped pie, or 2 single-crust pies).
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup chilled lard or frozen nonhydrogenated solid vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
5 tablespoons (or more) ice water
Preparation:
Blend flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter and lard; using on/off turns, blend until mixture resembles coarse meal. Transfer mixture to medium bowl. Add 5 tablespoons ice water and mix with fork until dough begins to clump together, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if dry (mixture should stay together when squeezed). Gather dough together. Divide dough in half; flatten each half into disk. Wrap each disk in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour. DO AHEAD Can be made 3 days ahead. Keep refrigerated. If necessary, soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.
Note: If you don’t have a processor, use my preferred method: Freeze butter and lard/shortening. Mix dry ingredients together. Use two knives to cut lard into flour mixture until you have smallish pieces (dime-sized), then use a box grater to grate the frozen butter directly into the flour mixture. Using your fingers, toss the flour to coat the butter flakes, then rub everything together for no more than 30 seconds. Seriously. Now you can happily proceed to the next step.