I’m the pie baker for this year’s family Thanksgiving gathering. Thanks to Grandma Conrad’s foolproof recipe, the pie crusts are ready to go. The post below debuted at Down the Gravel Road in November of 2009. Not only does it tell the story of our family’s pie baking tradition, it also is a wonderful memory of Aunt Lois Benson who died just over a year ago.
Yesterday I mentioned that my extended family considers the words “I love you” and “Taste this” to be synonyms. What I didn’t tell you was that yesterday, two of the matriarchs of our extended Hess family’s kitchens, my mother and my Aunt Lois, spent the day baking together.
Now that’s not all we did. Aunt Lois also graciously consented to being interviewed about her memories of life on her parents’ Iowa and Minnesota farms in the 1920s and 30s. And when we needed a break from the baking, we went to our town’s Dutch Oven Bakery for lunch.
But for the most part, I cracked the whip on these two ladies. Back in their baking days, which lasted from the 1930s until the 2000s, they were extraordinary pie bakers. So yesterday, I eeked every possible pie baking secret out of them. If only their other two living sisters could have been here, I could have learned the secrets of Aunt Letha’s sour cream raisin pie and Aunt Donna’s butterscotch, too.
Aunt Lois said the secret to good pie crust is mixing a little baking powder into the flour and using rendered lard – hard to find these days – cutting it into the flour until the mixture crumbles are pea-sized. I wanted to get her pie crust recipe, but she said she never used one, just added ingredients until it looked and felt right.
As a tribute to my aunts, who made pie crust as flaky and tender as any I’ve ever tasted, here is my fail safe recipe. It came from Aunt Letha’s mother-in-law who was also a wonderful cook.
Grandma Conrad’s Never Fail Pie Crust
6 cups flour 2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder 1 – 1 1/2 cups lard
1 egg 2 tablespoons vinegar
In a 1 cup measuring cup, beat egg with a fork. Add vinegar and enough water to make one cup. Set aside. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Cut in lard until mixture is crumbly but not clumpy. Pour liquid mixture into flour mixture and stir with a fork until it forms a large ball.
This recipe makes 5 – 6 pie crusts. Let the dough sit for 10 minutes and roll out all the crusts. When they’re rolled out, place a piece of waxed paper on the crust and carefully roll the paper and crust into a tube. Put the crusts in a 2 gallon zipper bag and freeze. Then, thaw the rolls and use them when you’re ready to bake.
