Pie Crust

Hi pigglies, whenever I end up trying to make pastry it ends up as a disaster fit only for the bin which suprises me as in other areas I'm a good cook. I responded to this though as I have absolutely no idea what 'shortening' is and would love to be enlightened. From your post I gather it isn't some kind of butter which is what usually goes in my useless pastry. If it is something which is available here please give some idea of measurements and maybe I'll have yet another go at pastry.

My grandmother just used flour a little salt and either lard or shorting and ice cold water . She always said the secret to a good pie crust was to not over work it. The recipes that I use calls for flour, shorting, egg, water and white vinegar. we always have some left over and sprinkle that with sugar and cinnamon as an extra treat.

The crusts I have grown up with had no eggs or dairy. I got one recipe with eggs in it, but do not use any recipe much lately. I like mine to have a bit of salt in it rather than the sugar. The sugar will make it brown nicely though.

I make the vinegar pie crust, that is the one with flour, lard, one egg, and vinegar plus a little salt plus the water. I find it easier and you can keep rolling it again and again and it does not get stiff. With the short crust pastry that contains flour, ice water, lard or shortening and a little salt, you have to be careful and not roll it out as much or it gets stiff. My mother-in=law used the short crust pastry recipe to make Saskatoon berry turnovers but she added a little baking powder to it.

well, I think that old style pie crust used lard instead of shortening, but these days most use shortening or butter. Now, to keep the crust dry some brush some egg on their crust, but my mother never needed to do that and her pie crust was yummy. Because she used Crisco, she could do the flour and shortening part up ahead of time and then just put the crust together at the last minute. I sure miss mom's apple pie.

wow! that sounds like a really easy pie crust to make! i made on before and it called for so much butter. i didn't realize how much it was at the time because i always listen to the recipe. but when i tried a piece of it later i could really taste the butter. i know that buttery pie crusts are supposed to be favored but i wasn't sure about it. the recipe also called for eggs. i put apple filling inside the crust and that bit worked out really well. the trick with apples is you need to fry them up with some white sugar and butter in a put just enough to get all the juices out of them. them you drain out the fluid and boil it down until it caramelizes. cherry pie is also one of my favorites!

I just made three pies over the past weekend. I used the old tried and true recipe of flour, shortening, salt and water. It turned out great! I agree that years ago they used lard instead of shortening. Any leftover pie crust I have, I sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on and bake till the crust is lightly browned. Makes a great snack!