Making Pie Crust with Lard
One thing I love to do is make pies, including my own pie crust. A homemade pie crust has a flavor and texture so superior to a store-bought crust and is so easy to make, that I never even think of buying one. If you have cold butter (and/or lard), flour, salt and sugar, you can have a pie crust dough ready to put in the refrigerator in 10 minutes.
Ingredients
Basic Pie Dough recipe - (makes one single crust)
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour I use White Lily, of course
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 3/4 stick unsalted butter (6 tblsp), chilled in the freezer and cut into pieces
- 2 tbsp lard (1 oz.) chilled in the freezer and cut into pieces
- 4-6 tbsp ice water
Instructions
- Weigh the lard
- Put the flour, salt and sugar into a food processor. Pulse a few times to blend. Add your frozen butter and lard pieces to the flour in the food processor. Pulse 5 or 6 times to cut the fat into the flour until it is the size of small peas. You don’t want it to mix completely or to melt.
- Pour this out into a mixing bowl, where you can add your ice water, one tablespoon at a time. After 4 spoonfuls, mix it together by hand until it begins to come together in a ball. If it is too dry, incorporate more ice water until it forms a dough ball. You want to work quickly and not knead it too much. Just work it until it comes together.
- Pat the dough into a disk shape, then wrap in plastic wrap. The dough has to rest in the fridge for at least two hours. Make-Ahead Note: I make my dough the day before and refrigerate overnight. You can also put them into the freezer and they will keep for a couple of months. I like to keep extra pie crust dough ready in my freezer all the time. When you know that you will need it, pull it out of the freezer the night before and place in the fridge to thaw overnight.
- After the dough rests, put on a clean, floured surface to roll out. Roll out the dough until it is about 1/2 -1/4 inch thick. To get an idea of size, you can place your pie pan over your rolled dough. The dough circle should extend about two inches over your pie pan circumference, about 11-12 inches.
- Lift and place the dough into the pie pan. Try not to stretch the dough, as this will encourage shrinking as it bakes. Trim and fold the edges under to make a clean-looking pie crust. I like to pinch the edges to give it a scalloped look.
- At this point, you’ll want to follow your pie recipe. Sometimes (like with a Lemon Chess Pie), you can fill the uncooked pie shell and bake it all at once. In other recipes, you will want to pre-bake the pie shell. If you need to pre-bake your crust, just line your pie shell with a non-stick foil or parchment, then use pie weights to keep the sides from shrinking or collapsing while you do your pre-bake. You can use a store-bought pie weight or a couple of cups of beans or even a jar full of pennies. As long as they’re not touching the crust you should be fine. Follow your recipe to see how long you should pre-bake, but generally it takes about 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.Use your pie crusts in my Lemon Chess Pie or Pumpkin Pie.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!