I've been baking pie for as long as I can remember. My favourite is a fruit pie (any sort, really). I tend to avoid cream pies like coconut cream and banana cream, mostly because blind baking (baking the crust alone before adding the filling) is a pain in the butt. My hubby prefers a pecan. That's the beauty of pie. There are so many to choose from!
When I was first married (a million years ago😂), my mother-in-law, Daisy, gave me a hand written recipe called Bride’s Pastry, a no-fail pie dough recipe. As a result, I became a pie master, bringing pie to almost every family occasion. Over the years, I became more experienced and experimental, trying lattice work and cut out crusts, as well as new recipes for pastry such as Melissa Clark’s all butter pie dough from NYT. But, Daisy’s recipe is my go-to for almost every pie I bake. I’ve renamed it Daisy’s Pastry in honour of one of the most tolerant and charitable people I’ve ever met!
Daisy’s Pastry
—a recipe from a wonderful woman
Yield: one double crust or two single crust pies
Prepare the Dough
½ lb. Tenderflake lard, chilled and cubed
¼ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp kosher or sea salt
½ cup cold water (I fill a bowl with ice and cold water and measure from that)
- Fluff flour with a fork. Dip in measure cup and ‘wipe’ off with the back of a knife. Put into food processor
- Add salt
- Pulse in food processor
- Add chilled, cubed lard and butter
- Pulse until butter is the size of chick peas (this makes a flaky crust. Err on the side of larger rather than smaller. Visible chunks = flaky crust)
- Add ice cold water through the feed tube
- Pulse until it just holds together
- Turn out onto counter. Handle minimally. Use bench scraper to divide in half (bottom and top crust).
- Cover each disc and refrigerate for 30 min. Some use cling wrap. I prefer a beeswax wrap or a glass snap lid container
To roll out (You’ve got this!)
- Take a deep breath
- Remove dough from the fridge and let sit 10 minutes at room temperature
- Scatter some flour on the counter (or better yet, use a pastry cloth! No sticking, so much easier to work with. You can find one here: https://lot8.ca/products/pastry-cloth
- Open up one disc of dough
- Flatten with the palm of your hand
- Roll out until it is a little larger than your pie plate (I often flip it as I roll it to make sure it doesn’t stick to the counter). If you can still see pats of butter, that is great (as the butter melts in the oven, this makes it flaky)
- Fold the dough in half (this is soooo much easier with a pastry cloth)
- Slop the dough into the pie plate. Trim it all around to an inch higher than the pie plate. If you need to patch, go ahead and do that with scraps; this stuff is pretty forgiving. Proceed for single or double crust pie
For a single crust pie
- Fold over the edge either over or under all the way around. Pinch with thumb and finger to make a ‘fluted’ edge.
- Chill for 30 min.
- Carry on and make your filling and crumble
For a double crust pie
- Once you have trimmed the overhang, simply chill the crust for 30 min.
- Go ahead and make your filling
- Add it to the pie plate
- Roll the second disc of dough just as you did the first, making sure it is a little larger than your pie plate
- Lay the dough on top of your pie.
- Trim the edge to about an inch overhang all the way around.
- Fold it under all along the top of the pie plate
- Pinch with thumb and finger to make a ‘fluted’ edge.
- Brush with an egg wash of one egg yolk beaten with 1 Tb of water
- Cut an ‘x’ in the top of the crust as a vent
You did it!!!
And now, for more chat about a pastry cloth!
For the new or the seasoned baker, a pastry cloth just makes pie making, well, as easy as pie! Flour is rubbed into the cloth which prevents the pastry from sticking. This makes rolling, folding and lining the pie plate so much simpler. There is so much to love about this cloth:
-locally made in Toronto Ontario
-made from pre-washed organic cotton canvas (14 oz or heavy duty)
-20 x 24" (an ample size for a single pie crust)
-make almost any work surface your work surface
Instructions for use:
-For its first use, condition the cloth by rubbing all purpose flour onto the cloth
-Roll out chilled dough
-To move dough to the pie plate, lightly flour the rolled dough. Put the knife edge of your hand along the centre of your dough. Fold the pastry cloth in half along that knife edge. Pull the cloth away. The dough is now folded. Lift that folded dough and place it into the pie plate along the half way point. Unfold the dough until it fits the whole pie plate. Alternatively, watch the video! See the link below!