Lard Pie Crust
Pie crust. Those delicious, flaky, crusts that make pies so much better. I have always struggled with making a perfect flaky crust, until now! I found that the secret ingredient to the perfect pie crust is…. Lard. Yep that’s right! Lard , the stuff your grandmother used to use in her baking. A great article on lard you can find at weed em and reap’s blog here www.weedemandreap.com/2013/02/the-top-3-reasons-why-you-should-be-eating-lard.html .
Now for the recipe. The recipe isn’t something I came up with on my own. Its just a normal pie crust recipe that I normally make but instead of Crisco (i have never used Crisco, but i know most recipes call for it) or butter I used lard.
Pie Crust Recipe With Lard
•1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
•1/4 teaspoon salt ( or a pinch)
•1/2 Cup Lard
•4 Tablespoons water (or more if needed)
Mix flour and salt together. Cut in lard and until flour and lard look like course crumbs. Add water until the dough holds together. Roll dough into ball and wrap with wax paper and place in fridge for around 30 minutes. After dough has been in fridge, place between two pieces of wax paper and roll out with rolling pin. Remove one piece of wax paper and place dough in pie pan, with wax paper up. Fit crust to pie pan and remove wax paper. Add pie filling and cook for designated time for pie.
This crust tastes great with pumpkin filling. You will never want to make another pie crust without lard once you have made this.
Comments
For those who don’t know, where can you find lard? Yummm, that pie looks so good!
You can find it at some farmers markets depending on where you are located,or you can render some yourself from pastured pork fat. Here is a tutorial from Oh Lardy! on how to render lard yourself (this is what i did) http://ohlardy.com/how-to-render-lard . I rendered my own lard from pastured non-gmo pork fat in my slow cooker.
I highly recommend rendering your own, as a former meat cutter, you want leaf lard which comes from around the kidney’s. I could go into a whole dissertation here but not.
I render my own lard… this crust did not roll out very well for me at all 🙁 Even between wax paper. I had to basically put it in the pie pan and shape it that way.