Tuesday, January 5, 2010

I DID IT!!!

Yes, all caps. I have mentioned before the struggle I have with pie crust. How hard can it be? It is 4 or 5 ingredients, some mixing, some rolling, and voila. Yep, not a lot of voila for me. I'm not professing to be an awesome cook-I can cook, but it shouldn't be this hard to get a decent pie crust. All that has changed with a recipe from my friend at work. Crystal is a young girl married to a young guy that also works with us. She loves to cook and bake also and I have mentioned my struggle with pie crust and my falling back on store bought dough. She told me that she found a recipe that worked great for her and she had shared it with yet another co-worker who had success with it also. She wrote out the recipe for me and I finally had a chance to try it this weekend. I was getting harassed on Facebook by some co-workers looking for some chow on our first night back to work.

7-Up and Lard Pie Crust

5-1/2 cups flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound lard, chilled and cubed into 1 inch pieces
1-12 oz can 7-Up

Combine flour and salt and sift into a bowl. Cut lard into flour and salt until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in 7-Up until mixture forms a ball. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces and refrigerate at least 4 hours. Roll out and use in your favorite recipe.

The dough was sticky, so I rolled it with a little flour and in between waxed paper-still a little sticky. Crystal said she works flour into it when she rolls out the dough and it doesn't have impact on the flakiness of the crust. I will do that when I roll the rest out this weekend for the Chocolate French silk pie I'm making for our family Christmas. I was erring on the side of caution until I could talk to her at work about it. She also uses this dough for home made pot pies as it isn't sweet. The only sweetness comes from the lemon-lime soda. I think I may try adding a few tablespoons of sugar to the next one just to see, as Drama Queen thought it should be a little more sweet.


I can't tell you how excited I was to have it turn out. One more thing marked off the list!








Here are some current Tofu pictures. What happens when you have a bored college student, her Mom's camera and a curious cat?

Ummm, the door was open when I walked in here....




Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?



Fine, have it your way. I'm taking a nap

6 comments:

Leslie said...

YEAH to you!! How very exciting. I have never seen a pie recipe quite like that one

Lea Ann said...

Beautiful and congratulations. The last time I tried to make pie crust in the presense of my "perfect pie crust making" mom, I ended up in tears with my mom exclaiming "I don't know how this high altitude works". I will try again!

Debbie said...

lard does make the best crusts!!

Jenny said...

You did it! It's not so hard once you get the hang of it, and its worth it. I like to mix lard and butter- lard for texture and butter for flavor.

Monica H said...

Can't say I've ever seen a recipe wuite like this one, but I'm intrigued! Congrats on your success!

How many crusts does this recipe make?

Alea Milham said...

Yay! I just mastered pie crusts and pizza crusts too.