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Plain Crisco Pastry
1 1/2 cupfuls flour 1/2 cupful Crisco 1/2 teaspoonful salt Cold water Sift flour and salt and cut Crisco into flour with knife until finely divided. Finger tips may be used to finish blending materials. Add gradually sufficient water to make stiff paste. Water should be added sparingly and mixed with knife through dry ingredients. Form lightly and quickly with hand into dough; roll out on slightly floured board, about one-quarter inch thick. Use light motion in handling rolling-pin, and roll from center outward. Sufficient for one small pie.
A short-crust formula built to sell shortening, and still a sound 3:1 flour-to-fat ratio by volume. The recipe stops at the rolled sheet, so baking guidance has to come from elsewhere.
- The hinge: cold and quickThe dough is worked with a knife rather than the hands for a reason. Every extra second of warm handling develops gluten and melts the fat into the flour, and the result is a crust that shrinks and toughens rather than flaking.
- How much water"Sufficient water" for this quantity is roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons of ice water. Add it a tablespoon at a time and stop when the dough just holds together when pressed; a genuinely "stiff paste" here means barely cohesive, not smooth.
- CupfulAn American cupful in this period is the same 8 fluid ounces used now. The 1 1/2 cupfuls of flour is about 190 g, the 1/2 cupful of Crisco about 100 g.
- Crisco then and nowCrisco in the 1910s was partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, firmer and waxier than the current soybean and palm blend, which was reformulated in the late 2000s to cut trans fats. Modern shortening softens faster in a warm kitchen, so chill the fat and the finished dough.
- Rest before rollingThe original rolls immediately. Thirty minutes wrapped in the refrigerator relaxes the gluten and firms the fat, and makes the quarter-inch sheet far easier to move without tearing.
- Quarter inch is thickA quarter inch is generous by current standards; an eighth is the usual target for a pie shell. The extra thickness suits a deep filled pie better than a delicate tart.
- Baking, since the recipe gives noneFor a blind-baked shell, line with paper and weights and bake at 425F for about 15 minutes, then remove the weights and give it 8 to 10 minutes more until the base is dry and pale gold.
- Yield"One small pie" most likely means a single crust for a pan of about 8 inches, or a 7-inch pan with a little trim to spare. Double the quantities for a covered pie.
This comes from a promotional cookbook written around Crisco, the hydrogenated vegetable shortening Procter & Gamble brought to market in 1911, and the plainness of the recipe is the point: it exists to prove that the new product could stand in for lard or butter in the most conservative corner of American baking. Pastry was the test case that mattered, because a cook who trusted a shortening with her pie crust would trust it with everything else. The technique described here is entirely orthodox short-crust practice of the period, cutting solid fat into flour with a knife and binding with as little cold water as possible, and it reads the same in cookbooks decades older; only the fat is new.