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Conquering the Crust

A good pie crust is more than just a vehicle to get the filling to your mouth. A good pie crust has flavor and flaky layers, and is tender but still snaps. My mother makes a fine pie crust. My grandmothers made very fine crusts. Me? Not so much. Until recently, I bought my crusts. Every few years, I gave ’em another try. All were sad disappointments. Tough. No layers. No flavor. I have tried shortening, butter, a combo, even oil (Mom uses oil with great success). I used a pastry cutter, two butter knives, my fingers. I overworked it. I rolled it too thick. I gave up.

So with the start of this blog, shame finally drove me to the pie crust again. I read ALOT. I watched Ina Gartner and America’s Test Kitchen and asked around. I took a cooking class where the dessert was a tart crust. I kept coming back to “DON’T TOUCH IT TOO MUCH” and “KEEP IT COLD” … over and over and over. The key equipment seemed to be a food processor. I didn’t have a full-size one, I don’t have the space to store one, but if I was ever going to conquer pie crusts, I felt I had to give it one more try. So I bought myself a basic Cuisinart food processor.

My first attempt was with an all-butter crust (from Cutie Pies by Dani Cone). I found I needed far less water than the printed recipe called for, but by carefully following the **technique**, I produced one FINE pie crust. Me! A pie crust! And I did it again and again!

Buoyed by my initial successes, I tweaked the recipe a bit, replacing some of the butter with lard. Yes, lard. Fruit of the pig. Properly rendered lard is as neutral in flavor as vegetable shortening, but none of that trans-crap. Lard truly elevates this crust from delicious to sublime. The lightness and flakiness and layers upon layers … I tell you, the lard really makes it. So I share with you, today, my pie crust.

Pie Crust
Makes 1 double-crust 9″ pie or 2 single-crust 9″ pies
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2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup lard
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
1/2 cup ice water

Put the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of the food processor fitted with the metal blade. Pulse 2 or 3 times to combine. Put the lard and butter cubes on top of the flour.

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Pulse just a few times until the fats are distributed into flour-coated pea-sized globs. This might be as little as 10 pulses.

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Pour the iced water through the narrow feed tube and pulse just until it’s through the tube and the mixture looks like wet sand. This might be just 10 pulses.

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Reach in and grab a small amount. Squeeze. Does it stick together like play-doh? If so — you are done!! If dry, add water just a teaspoon at a time, with a minimum of pulses, to get to this wet-sand-squeezable state.

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Dump the contents onto your floured countertop. Divide in half. Shape each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap (or a zippered bag) and refrigerate for AT LEAST an hour and up to 3 days. Freeze if it’s going to be around longer than that.

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When ready to roll, let it set out just a few minutes (no more than 10). Lard is softer at refrigerator temp than butter, so it can’t sit around long. On a lightly floured countertop, roll out your patty to about a 12″ circle about 1/4″ thick. I like to put my rolling pin in the center, roll away from me. Pick up the pin and place back in the center, roll towards me. Rotate the patty about a quarter-turn, and repeat. The larded crust is a little more fragile than an all-butter, so you may get a little tearing towards the edges. Patch it. Who cares. This pie crust ROCKS.

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