PIES—FLAKY PIE CRUST
Have all the materials cold when making pastry. Handle as little as possible. Place in a bowl 3½ cups flour, ¾ teaspoonful salt and 1 cup good, sweet lard. Cut through with a knife into quite small pieces and mix into a dough with a little less than a half cup of cold water. Use only enough water to make dough hold together. This should be done with a knife or tips of the fingers. The water should be poured on the flour and lard carefully, a small quantity at a time, and never twice at the same place. Be careful that the dough is not too moist. Press the dough with the hands into a lump, but do not knead. Take enough of the dough for one pie on the bake board, roll lightly, always in one direction, line greased pie tins and fill crust. If fruit pies, moisten the edge of the lower crust, cover with top crust, which has been rolled quite thin. A knife scraped across the top crust several times before placing over pie causes the crust to have a rough, flaky, rich-looking surface when baked. Cut small vents in top crust to allow steam to escape. Pinch the edges of fruit pies well together to prevent syrup oozing out. If you wish light, flaky pie crust, bake in a hot oven. If a sheet of paper placed in oven turns a delicate brown, then the oven is right for pies. The best of pastry will be a failure if dried slowly in a cool oven.
When baking a crust for a tart to be filled after crust has been baked, always prick the crust with a fork before putting in oven to bake. This prevents the crust forming little blisters.
Aunt Sarah always used for her pies four even cups of flour, ¼ teaspoonful baking powder and one even cup of sweet, rich, home-made lard, a pinch of salt with just enough cold water to form a dough, and said her pies were rich enough for any one. They certainly were rich and flaky, without being greasy, and she said, less shortening was necessary when baking powder was used. To cause her pies to have a golden brown color she brushed tops of pies with a mixture of egg and milk or milk and placed immediately in a hot oven.
Mary noticed her Aunt frequently put small dabs of lard or butter on the dough used for top crust of pies before rolling crust the desired size when she wished them particularly rich.
Aunt Sarah always used pastry flour for cake and pie. A smooth flour which showed the impression of the fingers when held tightly in the hand (the more expensive "bread flour") feels like fine sand or granulated sugar, and is a stronger flour and considered better for bread or raised cakes in which yeast is used, better results being obtained by its use alone or combined with a cheaper flour when baking bread.
AUNT SARAH'S LEMON PIE
This is a good, old-fashioned recipe for lemon pie, baked with two crusts, and not expensive. Grate the yellow outside rind from one lemon, use juice and pulp, but not the white part of rind; mix with 2 small cups of sugar, then add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of milk, and 1 large tablespoonful of corn starch, moistened with a little of the one cup of water. The yolks of 2 eggs were added. Mix all ingredients and add the stiffly beaten whites of eggs. This quantity will fill three small pastry crusts. The mixture will measure nearly one quart. Pour into the three crusts, moisten edges of pies, place top crusts on each pie. Pinch edges of crust together and bake in hot oven.