Pie School and So Much More!

For awhile now I've been trying to master making the perfect pie. Apple pie is my husband's favorite dessert. Not just any apple pie but especially home-made apple pie. It seemed my grandmother and his grandmother always had some kind of pie available. It was just a common kitchen staple. Both had their own way of making pies. Neither followed a recipe. That's probably part of my problem. If I had one of their recipes, I may have figured this out by now.

I have my grandma's sugar cookie recipe. And my sugar cookies come out just like hers. They're more flour than sugar but they are perfect for dunking in coffee or hot tea. As for the pie recipe, more specifically the pie crust recipe....it's been a struggle...a trial and error event!

I've tried just about every recipe in every cookbook I have. Some use butter, some use shortening. All suggested using ice water. But never has the crust came out just right. Until....

Until I tried a recipe in this book:

This book is full of great pie recipes! And it has a wonderful pie crust recipe that has come out perfect every time so far! I like it because each recipe makes three single pie crusts. Today I plan to make pudding pies! That's another pie my grandma used to make alot. They're very simple and sometimes are made in graham cracker crusts. But you just mix up a box of pudding and put it in your prepared pie crust and let it chill. It's delicious as it is but even more so if you top it with whipped cream! Yum!

So, here is the recipe for the pie crust:

3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup lard (I use butter flavor crisco)
1 large egg
1/3 cup cold water
1 tbs apple cider vinegar (makes the crust flaky)

In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Stir to blend. Add the lard and rub it into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the egg, water and vinegar and stir with a fork until the dry ingredients are moistened. Form the dough into a ball and divide into three balls. Form a ball into a disk and roll it out to 1/8 inch thickness on a floured surface.

Fit the dough into a 9 inch pan and trim the edges.

This dough can be left into balls, placed in plastic freezer bags and kept frozen for up to 3 months. ( haven't tried that yet).


I haven't graduated from Pie School yet. I consider myself a freshman. But with this first success comes encouragement to keep going...keep trying other recipes and see which ones I like, which ones I'll pass down to my children.

I still think about our grandmothers and wonder how or when they first learned to make pies. They were probably tiny little girls barely able to see above the table when they first started playing in pie dough. But mostly I think about them when I was just a tiny little girl barely able to see above the table. Their tables were always full of food. There was always something delicious to eat. Knowing what an effort it is to prepare a meal, I wonder how they did it. How did they always manage to have food ready to feed anyone who stopped by?

My Great Aunt Pauline would have to be at the top of the list when it came to being a Super Food Preparer! Everyone said she cooked like she was feeding an army! Some days it probably felt like it too. Her house was always bustling. I don't remember a time growing up that there wasn't several cars in the driveway and people practically coming in shifts to eat. Her cooking pots were about the size of 5-gallon buckets. No matter how many people came through the door, there was always enough for everyone.

More than mastering the pie crust recipe, I'm trying to master the other lessons I've learned from our grandmothers and from Aunt Pauline. How to lovingly prepare meals for my family. How to plan ahead and put delicious food on the table. Not just grab some frozen thing, throw it in the microwave and call it dinner. Meal time should be more. It should be about family, about our time together...the talking and laughter. Who knows! One day my grandchild may be blogging about my dinner table. What would she say??? I would want her to say that she always had fun at Grandma's house, and that Grandma always had lots of delicious food and most of all her Grandma made the best pies ever! :-)