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The New Crisco Pastry
2 cupfuls flour 3/4 cupful Crisco 1 egg 1 tablespoonful lemon juice Sufficient cold water to hold mixture together 3/4 teaspoonful salt Sift flour and salt into basin. Flour blade of knife, and chop Crisco into flour, being careful to keep flour between blade of knife and shortening. When mixture looks like meal, add gradually, egg well beaten and mixed with lemon juice. Roll pastry into ball with knife. May be used at once, but will be improved if allowed to stand in cool place for one hour. Should be rolled out once and handled as lightly as possible. May be used for sweet or savory dishes. Bake in hot oven. The purpose of the addition of lemon is to render gluten of flour more ductile, so that it will stretch rather than break as paste is rolled out, or as it rises in oven.
Sufficient for two pies.
A straightforward all-purpose short crust from Crisco's own promotional literature, with an egg and acid enrichment that makes it forgiving to roll. A few notes on quantities and heat.
- Hot oven means 425-450FHot oven -- the recipe gives no temperature; in period usage "hot oven" is generally taken as somewhere around 400-450F. For blind-baked shells and most filled fruit pies the upper end works; if the filling needs longer than about 20 minutes, drop the heat once the crust has set and coloured.
- The shortening is the whole point3/4 cup Crisco to 2 cups flour is a rich ratio by weight (roughly 145 g fat to 250 g flour). Any solid vegetable shortening behaves the same way; butter will give more flavour but a firmer, less tender crumb and will need the dough kept colder.
- Keep everything coldThe recipe does not explain the floured blade; keeping flour between blade and shortening stops the fat clinging to the knife. Fat that smears rather than stays in flakes gives a tough, greasy crust, so chilled shortening, cold water and the optional hour of rest all help.
- The lemon juiceThe explanation given in the original is close enough to right: acid slackens the gluten and slightly limits its development, so the dough relaxes and shrinks less. A tablespoon in this quantity of flour is not enough to taste in a savoury pie.
- "Sufficient cold water"Deliberately vague, and reasonably so, because flour absorbency varies. Expect 1 to 3 tablespoons after the egg and lemon go in. Stop as soon as the dough coheres when pressed; a wet dough will be tough.
- Roll out onceRe-rolling scraps develops gluten and the second batch will shrink and toughen. If you need trimmings, gather them, press them flat rather than kneading, chill, and use them for something that does not need to look neat.
- YieldTwo single-crust 9-inch pies, or one generous double-crust pie. Divide unevenly if you are making a lidded pie, keeping the larger piece for the base.
Crisco was introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1911, the first widely sold hydrogenated vegetable shortening, and the company backed it with a long campaign of small recipe booklets aimed at persuading cooks to abandon lard and butter. Pastry was the natural battleground: lard made excellent crust, so any substitute had to prove itself in a pie shell. Hence the confident tone here and the small lecture on gluten at the end, which is characteristic of the period's enthusiasm for explaining domestic science to the home cook. The egg-and-lemon enrichment makes the dough noticeably easier for an inexperienced hand to roll without tearing.