Pie Crust
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, combine the pastry flour and salt.
Cut the lard into the flour with a knife until it resembles fine meal.
Gradually add ice water, mixing until the dough holds together.
Transfer the dough to a floured surface and flatten it to ½ inch thick.
Laminate the dough
Dot the surface with small pieces of lard and sprinkle with flour.
Cut the dough into four strips and stack them, placing the last one bottom side up.
Using a rolling pin, pound the stacked dough briskly.
Roll it out again, sprinkle with lard and flour, pound, then roll it up like a jelly cake.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Pastry flour
- Forms the structure of the dough when mixed with water.
- Lard
- Creates flaky layers by staying solid and separate from the flour until baking.
- Ice water
- Hydrates the flour so the dough holds together while keeping the fat cold.
The step that matters
Cut the lard into the flour until it resembles fine meal. If the lard is worked in too thoroughly or melts, the fat coats the flour instead of staying in pieces, and the crust turns tough and loses its flakiness. Keeping the fat in distinct pieces produces layers when the crust bakes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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