Perfect Flaky Pie Crust

Serve with either vanilla ice cream or this Amaretto Whipped Cream from Jessica at How Sweet Eats. Divine!

http://www.howsweeteats.com/2014/07/sweet-cherry-pie-with-amaretto-whipped-cream/

Course Pastry and Pie

Cuisine American

Keyword apple pie, butter, homemade, lard, pie crust

Prep Time 15

Total Time 15

Servings Servings

Calories 358kcal

Author Barb

Ingredients

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons cold butter 1/2 cup, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 tablespoons lard (1/2 cup) cold, separated into several chunks
6-8 tablespoons ice water

Instructions

To Make the Pie Crust
Mix flour and salt in food processor fitted with metal blade.
Cut in butter cubes with five 1-second pulses. Add cold lard and continue cutting in until flour resembles coarse cornmeal with butter bits no bigger than small peas, about 4 additional 1-second pulses. Turn mixture out into a medium-sized bowl.
Use your fingers to quickly sift through the mixture and if you find any really large chunks, just massage with some flour with your fingers to break it up.
Sprinkle 3 Tbsp of ice water over mixture. With a fork, fluff to mix thoroughly. Squeeze a handful of dough — if it doesn’t stick together, add two more tablespoons of water and repeat. Continue adding 1 tablespoon at a time until a quick squeeze of the dough shows it is sticking togeether
Divide dough into two and then flatten into 6-inch discs. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling. I had better success using a pastry cloth than trying to roll it on my granite top but in either case, make sure you sprinkle counter/cloth with flour and flour your rolling pin.
Proceed with your recipe!

Notes

One of the MOST important aspects of making a successful pie is keeping everything cold so that the fat in your crust is solid when baking starts and they can do their magic in the oven; that's a big part of creating a flaky crust.

I freeze my processor bowl and blade and put the mixing bowl in the fridge. When it's time to test the dough after mixing with ICE water...make it quick; same when you pat it into those disks.

Nutrition