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Plain Paste

One and one-half cups of flour; one-fourth cup of butter; one teaspoon of salt; one-fourth cup of ice water; onefourth cup of lard. These ingredients will make sufficient paste for a pie with upper and under crusts. Sift the flour, measure it and add the salt. Chop the lard and butter into the flour with a sharp knife, but do not chop too fine. Add the water gradually, mixing the mass with the knife and adding only enough to hold the dough together. Turn out on a board and roll lightly, folding in the same way as for puff paste, but rolling and folding only until the paste can be shaped. Plain paste is not so easily rolled as puff paste, but it should be rolled as lightly as possible. Roll as thin as possible when using. When the sheet is laid in the pie tin, lift it lightly to allow all the air to escape from underneath; otherwise the crust may hump up when baking, especially if it is a custard pie. The crust will shrink in the baking, so when the edges are trimmed a sharp knife should be used and the crust turned away from the tin to allow for the shrinking.