Sift the flour into a deep wooden bowl. With a broad-bladed knife, or a small keen “chopper,” cut up the lard into the flour until it is fine as dust. Wet with ice-water into a stiff dough, working it with a wooden spoon until obliged to make it into a roll or ball with your hands. Flour these, and knead the paste into shape with as few strokes as will effect your end. Lay the lump upon a floured kneading-board and roll it out into a thin sheet, always rolling from you with quick, light action. When thin enough, stick bits of butter in regular close rows all over the sheet, using a knife for this purpose rather than your hands. Roll up the paste into close folds as you would a sheet of music. Flatten it that your rolling-pin can take hold, and roll out again as thin as before. Baste, roll up and then out, until your butter is gone. It is a good plan to sprinkle the inside of each sheet with a little flour after buttering it, before making it into a roll. Finally, make out your crust; butter your pie-plates, lay the paste lightly within them, cut it off evenly about the edges after fitting it neatly; gather up the scraps left from cutting, and make into another sheet. If the pies are to have a top crust, fill the plates with fruit or whatever you have ready, lay the paste on this, cut it to fit, and press down the edges to prevent the escape of the juice, with a spoon, knife, or jagging-iron, ornamenting it in a regular figure.
Bake in a moderate oven until a light brown. Be particularly careful to have your heat as great at the bottom as at the top, or the lower crust will be clammy and raw.
Pastry is always best when fresh.
It is well, when you can spare the time, to lay the roll, when all the butter is used up, in a very cold place for fifteen minutes or so before rolling it into crust. Indeed, some good housewives let it stand on the ice an hour in hot weather. They say it tends to make it flaky as well as firm.
Touch as little with your hands as may be practicable.
Family Pie-Crust (No. 2.) ✠
- 1 lb. flour.
- ¾ lb. butter.
- 1 teaspoonful soda.
- 2 teaspoonfuls cream-tartar.
- Ice-water to make into a stiff dough.
Chop half the butter into the flour until it looks like yellow sand (sift the soda and cream-tartar with the flour, passing it through the sieve twice to make sure it is well mixed); work with ice-water into stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet, baste with one-third the remaining butter, fold up closely into a long roll, flatten and re-roll, then baste again. Repeat this operation three times, until the butter is gone, when make out your crust.
This is an easy and sure receipt, and the paste very fine.