"Double Pie Crust made with Lard and Butter"

By RoketJSquerl

This crust is based on one I found elsewhere, except the original did not use lard. Try making 2 pies, one with lard and the other with shortening. You’ll notice the difference then, and will henceforth be a lover of lard.

Ingredients

• 3 Cups All-purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
• 3 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
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• 3/4 Cup (6 Ozs. or 11/2 Stick) Unsalted Butter, chilled and cubed
• 3/4 Cup (6 Ozs.) Lard, chilled and cubed
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• 4 Tbs. Iced Water (~1/3 c.) (4 to 5)

Details

Servings 2

Preparation

Step 1

The best way I have found to make a perfect pie crust is with a food processor. Put the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix well. Add the chunks of chilled butter and lard on top and pulse the food processor until it looks like coarse meal. Do not overmix this, and make sure the fats are cold ! Dump this into another bowl. It should still have large chunks of fat in it, ranging in size from the size of a pea to the size of shelled walnuts. Add the water and mix it with a fork until it comes together.


Stir with a fork until it gathers together. It should still be crumbly.

Divide this in two and dump it onto a piece of waxed or parchment paper (or plastic wrap) and flatten it to a disk, about 4-6 inches in diameter.

Cover the disks well and let them chill until very cold. The dough should not be wet at all. In fact, it should be somewhat dry and crumbly and difficult to work with at this point. As it cools in the refrigerator, the flour will absorb the water, and solidify. You do not want to knead this at all. Kneading this will form gluten, which is the enemy of pie crust. Gluten makes a pie crust very tough.

You can also freeze these disks of pie crust for a very long time. I am not really sure how long, but I know I have gone a year (hey, it got buried in the freezer) and the crust was perfectly fine. Just make sure it is tightly wrapped.

Once your crust is very cold, it is time to roll. Flour your work surface and take out the crust. Place it on the flour and roll it gently from the center outward. Roll it a bit larger than the pie tin you will be using. If you made this correctly, you will see the chunks of fat in the dough, and as you roll the dough these will flatten, and THAT IS WHAT MAKES THE FLAKES. You cannot do this with oil. Nope !

Gently press this into your pie tin, and proceed with your pie of choice. If you want to bake this “blind” (empty), chill the finished crust in the pie tin and then poke holes in the bottom with a fork. Place some baking parchment paper or foil inside the crust and add some beens or rice to weigh down the crust. Bake this at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 15 minutes. Let the crust cool and remove the beans or rice. Bake the crust again for another 10 minutes, or until a nice golden brown. If you bake the crust without the beans or rice in it, the crust may shrink while it bakes. If you bake the crust completely with the beans or rice in it, then the inside of the crust will not bake.

Remember, when baking a pie where the filling is cooked in the crust, set the oven rack low and start with a high temperature (around 400 Fahrenheit) and then turn the temperature down after about 10-15 minutes. This will assure the bottom crust does not end up raw and soggy. A metal pie pan is better than glass for insuring a properly cooked crust. Glass pie pans take too long to transfer heat to the crust, and the pie top sometimes gets overdone while the bottom crust stays raw. Glass pie pans are okay for baking blind crusts, because you can just bake it longer to get it done. Foil pie pans are great, but do not look as nice. I like to flip my pies out of the foil for serving, and the foil pans can be washed and reused. Hey ! Every penny counts these days.