Just another Day on the Farm

This is a old post from 2011 and I am bringing the whole post back as it such a good one. I should of course break each recipe down into its own post with its own photos. At the time when I was blogging, I didn’t know that splitting it down would be a good thing. Live and learn 🙂  Consider fresh fruits are starting to come in and one of the most amazing way to serve them is in pies or tarts. Knowing your Pie doughs and their basic differences would be a useful thing indeed.

The Basic Proportaions for regular pie Pastry are 1/4 tsp of salt to every cup of flour, and 1 part fat to 3 parts flour. The more fat added to the pastry, the shorter(lighter and crisper) it will be, a rich mixture is best for pies that will be eaten cold.

Butter, Margarine, Lard or Shortening may be used, and a mixture of fats tends to give the best results, butter and shortening, because the butter gives a a good flavor and the shortening a light texture.

For your rich Pie Pastry allow for 1 egg york for every two cups flour.

Pie Pastry

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup of fat
• 4 to 5 tbsp of cold water

Ideally Sift your flour with salt into a bowl, cut in fat with a pastry blender, as soon as the pieces of fat are well coated with flour, rub in with figertips (clean hands) until the mixture looks like fine crumbs.

Make a well in the middle, add your cold water and mix quickly, until you have a firm but not sticky dough, kneed just until smooth, you can chill your dough before using, at least 30 min, or longer as long as it tightly wrapped.

Rich Pie Pastry

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3rds cup of fat
• 1 egg yolk
• 3 to 4 tbsp of cold water

Process the same as above..

Grandma’s Pie Dough

• 1 pd of lard
• 6 cups of sifted flour
• 2 tbsp of vinager
• 1 whole egg
• cold water.
• Good Pinch of Salt

Shift your flour/Salt into bowl, then cut your fat into peices, mix with clean hands till you reach crumb stage, then in a measuring cup, put your vinager, your egg, beat together, then add enough water to get to one cup, make a well in middle and pour in, mix quickly till you have a smooth firm, non stickly dough. Make three full pies or six half pie shells.

Farm Gal’s Rich Pie Dough.

• 1 pd of lard
• 6 cups of sifted flour
• 3 tbsp of Sugar
• 2 tbsp of vinager
• 1 whole egg
• half Cold Water/Half Heavy Whipping Cream
• Good Pinch of Salt

Shift your flour/Salt/Sugar into a bowl, then cut your fat into peices, mix with clean hands till you reach crumb stage, then in a measuring cup, put your vinager, your egg, beat together, Add at least 2 tbsp of heavy Cream then add enough water to get to one cup, make a well in middle and pour in, mix quickly till you have a smooth firm, non stickly dough. Make three full pies or six half pie shells.

To reduce the calories and to allow for a great deal of flexablity in making quick mini pies, I have started making small round pie crusts that fit my small glass baking dishes, and then I freeze the dough, then wrap with layers of wax paper and into a zip lock freezer bag to keep, and when I want to make a small fruit cobbler with a flaky pie topping, I make up the fruit and bring the top only and bake it off in the oven. You save on the calories by only having a top. Also you can just bring out a pie crust, let it thaw out, and then place fresh apple/fruit/a pat of butter or a drizzle of maple in it and make a mini tartlet to be shared.

In this case, it was one Pie Crust, with Walnuts, Sweetened Dried Cranberries with a pat of butter and drizzle of maple syrup, baked with a brown sugar top, served with a tiny scoop of vanilla icecream on the side.