Home › Pantry Parking › MacDonald's Hot Water Pastry
MacDonald's Hot Water Pastry
2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup shortening 1/2 cup boiling water Pour boiling water over shortening, dissolving it. Then sift in dry ingredients, stirring quickly, and kneading in well, making sure of a good, smooth dough. Roll out on slightly floured board. Bake in hot oven. This will make 2 crusts.
A hot-water pastry: the fat is melted rather than cut in, which makes a dough that handles like clay and almost never turns tough. The trade-off is a crust that is tender and crumbly rather than flaky.
- The hingeThe water must be at a full boil when it hits the shortening, and the two should be stirred until the mixture is creamy and uniform. If the fat only half melts you get pockets of solid shortening and a greasy, patchy crust.
- Hot ovenRead that as 425-450F. For a filled pie, start there for the first 10-15 minutes to set the crust, then drop to 350-375F to finish.
- No time is givenAn unfilled shell blind-bakes in about 12-15 minutes at 425F, pricked or weighted. A filled two-crust pie will need 40-50 minutes in total.
- ShorteningOne cup of shortening to two cups of flour is a rich ratio by modern standards. Vegetable shortening or lard both work; butter is less reliable here, since its water content alters the liquid balance in a hot-water dough.
- Rest the doughThe recipe gives no resting period, and warm hot-water dough is indeed easiest to handle while pliable. If it is too soft to lift, chill it 15-20 minutes rather than adding flour, which stiffens the crust.
- Rolling and patchingThis dough tears more readily than a cut-in pastry but also mends easily, and it is among the easiest crusts to press directly into the pan with your fingers if rolling gives trouble.
- YieldTwo crusts, that is, one double-crust pie or two single 9-inch shells.