The Best Pie Crust
Posted by Ben | Under Desserts, Lick The Plate Clean Recipes Wednesday Feb 18, 2009This is a pastry pie crust and it has NO sugar. Pie crusts should NOT have sugar.
Jan Norris
The Best Pie Crust
3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. Crisco (cold)
1 egg
1 T. vinegar
1/4 c. cold water
Mix flour and salt.
Cut in shortening until crumbly, and pieces of shortening are no larger than a pea.
Beat egg and mix with vinegar and water.
Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix until all the flour is absorbed.
Roll out thinly on a floured pastry board.
This will make two 2-crust or 4 single crust pies.
Jan says…
You want to know about that vinegar, I’ll bet.
When flour is mixed with water, gluten is formed–protein strands that make bread so good. For quick breads, the mixture is only mixed until blended so it doesn’t have time to form much gluten. The vinegar is used in a pie crust recipe because the acid, together with the fat, keeps the gluten strands from getting too long. This makes for a really tender, flaky crust.
