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Pie Crust
One cup of lard mixed thoroughly with two cups of flour, onehalf teaspoon of salt, one-half cup of iced water. This makes crust for two large pies.
— Mrs. F. T. Beach
A four-ingredient crust with no oven direction at all, on the assumption that any cook using it already knew what to do with pastry. The proportions are the thing worth attention.
- The fat ratio is unusually highThe fat ratio is high -- one cup of lard to two cups of flour is roughly 200 g fat to 250 g flour, or about 1.25:1 by weight, richer than the 2:1 flour-to-fat of standard shortcrust. The result is very short and tender but fragile; expect to patch it rather than lift it cleanly.
- Add the water graduallyThe recipe gives half a cup outright, but that is generous for two cups of flour. With this much lard the dough will often come together on three or four tablespoons; pouring it all in gives a slack, tough paste. Stop as soon as the dough holds when pressed.
- "Mixed thoroughly" is misleadingCut the lard into the flour only until it is in pieces the size of peas. Working it fully into the flour, as the wording suggests, eliminates the fat layers that make the crust flake.
- Lard has changedSupermarket lard is usually hydrogenated and stabilised, with a firmer set and a faint processed flavour. Leaf lard, the fat from around the kidneys, gives the cleanest taste and the best texture; refrigerate it hard before use.
- Keep everything coldThe iced water is specified for a reason. With this proportion of fat the dough warms and greases quickly, so chill the mixing bowl in hot weather and rest the shaped dough in the refrigerator 30 minutes before rolling.
- Yield'two large pies' most likely means two single crusts, which would also be about enough for one double-crust pie of around 9 inches. Divide the dough unevenly if you are making a lidded pie: slightly more for the bottom.
- Baking, since none is givenA blind-baked shell wants 425F for 12-15 minutes with weights, then 375F until pale gold. A filled double-crust pie is generally started at 425F for 15 minutes and finished at 350F. Lard crusts colour fast, so watch the rim.
Lard pastry was the ordinary crust of the American farm kitchen well into the twentieth century, for the plain reason that lard was a byproduct every household with a pig already had, while butter was worth money at market and vegetable shortening did not become widely available until the century's second decade. Community cookbooks like this one, assembled from neighbors' contributions and signed with the contributor's married name, tend to carry several versions of the same basic formula with slightly different proportions, which is itself a record of how such recipes travelled from one kitchen to the next, adjusted by whoever was doing the rolling. The absence of any baking instruction here is characteristic. These books were written for readers who needed the proportions and nothing else.