My grandmother made Killer Pies.
With a fabulous crust made from scratch.
Which is why it gives me great shame to confess that, for many years, this was my pie crust of choice.
Here I have to stop and admit that I am a teeny bit competitive. And when I'm not any good at something, I tend to avoid it.
So, when the first two pie crusts I made from scratch turned out tough, tasteless, and all around awful, I immediately fell back on the roll out pie crust.
Why were those first crusts so awful?
Because I wasn’t using my grandmother’s pastry recipe
I was using Martha Stewart’s pastry recipe.
I did everything, everything, she said to do for a perfect crust.
I used only grade A unsalted butter, I kept everything, including the mixing bowl, chilled to within an inch of its life. I didn't overwork the dough.
And the result was a tough, almost inedible, piecrust.
And I told myself, "Well everything Martha does is perfect - so if I can't make this work, it must be me.
And I gave up.
Until I was saved by the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook.
Which, of course, contains an entire primer on pie pastry.
With an important revelation:
The Betty Crocker pie crust is made with vegetable shortening.
Yes, you heard me, vegetable shortening.
Not expensive butter that had to be just the right temperature.
Just plain ol' Crisco, right out of the cupboard.
I wasn't too sure about this - every cooking show around was singing the praises of butter - how could this be better?
But it was.
It was Fabulous.
And it was Easy.
And, it turns out, it was also the recipe buried in that recipe book from my grandmother. The one I had not bothered to look at once Martha came along.
I was sold.
And ready to enthusiastically abandon the pre-fab refrigerator crust.
Between the Betty Crocker recipe and my own trial and error I’ve learned a few things about pastry over the years:
- Using only butter makes a crust that has buttery flavor but tends to be tough, no matter how little you handle it.
- Using only shortening makes a crust that is incredibly tender but not always durable. It also usually needs a little extra salt to balance out the flavor.
- A compromise of half salted butter and half shortening produces a crust that has great flavor, is nice and flaky, generally holds up to being served out of the pie dish using only a fork, and is almost foolproof.
Another nice thing about using any almost any amount of vegetable shortening or lard in a pie crust is that you no longer have to worry so much about all that chilling and keeping everything cold. Even if you are also using a lot of butter.
If you own a copy of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, and want to try your hand at a scratch piecrust using Betty’s recipes, head to the section on pies and pastry that starts on page 293. (In the 1950 edition) If you can't get your hands on a copy of the book but want Betty's vintage crust recipe click here.
A note about why I keep bringing up the 1950 edition - over the years many of the Betty Crocker recipes have changed as ideas about health and diet have changed. I can't promise that later editions of Betty Crocker recipes will give the same results as those I cite here.
If you want my recipe for pie crust – which is very similar to Betty’s – click here.
In Part two of piecrust we will continue with the Betty Crocker pastry “how-to” section and my own tips and tricks for dealing with scratch crust.
I promise you that perfect made-from-scratch piecrusts are not as hard as you think once you know a few tricks.
And the results are WELL worth it!
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