Lard has a larger fat crystal than other fats, which is one reason it works so well in pastry. Butter gives great flavor but has a lot of water in it and it melts quickly. The combination of lard and butter in pastry is a great twosome. When I use coconut oil (frozen and grated on the large hole on my box grater), I can reduce the amount of fat by about 25 percent, especially when using pastry flour or milling soft wheat or low-gluten spelt into flour to use for pastry. Good pastry is a combination of tenderness and flakiness and each characteristic is developed differently. Pastry is all about reducing the gluten development in the flour, so choose flour (pastry flour or Southern All-Purpose flours like Martha White, White Lily, Gladiola, Red Band) that has a low protein/gluten content to begin with as a great way to reduce gluten-development up front. If you want more tender pastry while using all-purpose flour you can add a little more fat and add an acid ingredient. Divide the cold fat in two portions and mix one half in the flour until it's very finely mixed. This will coat the flour so it develops the gluten in short strands (hence short-crust pastry) when the liquid is mixed in and will give a tender crust. Quickly add the remaining fat and keep it in larger blobs. When the heat of the oven melts the blobs of fat the steam will raise those layers in the pastry we recognize as a flaky pastry. Vinegar in a recipe is another way to decrease the gluten-development. Adding an acid brings one more tenderizer into play. "Acids soften gluten, breaking apart gluten strands and keeping the pastry tender." When eggs are used in a pastry recipe it is best used for something like a meat pie. The protein from the egg will reinforce the structure of the pastry, making it strong enough to hold a hefty filling. When liquid vegetable oil is used to make pastry it is considered a "warm fat", which coats each particle of flour so completely than no gluten develops. Oil pastries are very tender and tend to be more mealy than flaky since you don't have steam raising those flaky layers. Oil pastry is generally easier to handle and is easy to roll between two sheets of waxed paper. It's neither right or wrong what type of pastry you make - it's just one of those cooking/baking choices we make - BUT - as a general rule of thumb don't take an oil pastry to the fair because it will tend to get judged down because they rarely come up to judging standards. If a sticky dough that is hard to roll-out is your problem, you have too much gluten developed - probably from adding too much liquid and/or using flour that has a high protein content. Northern all-purpose flours like King Arthur and Robin Hood really don't make good pastry because of the high amount of protein. Add as little water as possible!!! As soon as lumps of dough stick together during mixing, stop mixing and adding water. It takes very little extra water, as little as 1/2 teaspoon, to quickly toughen the dough. -Grainlady

The Perfect-A-Crust rings are not drawn on a mat like the old Tupperware mats (I have a wooden board with the pastry sizes on it like the Tupperware mat I used to use). These are hard plastic rings that are about 1-inch wide and the thickness you would want a nice thin pastry. I know one professional pastry chef who uses them for all their pies because of the consistent results; and a friend who does pastry and baked goods catering and sells a lot of pies, who uses them. The nice thing is that you won't need to use bench flour to roll the dough out. Too much bench flour can cause your crusts to become tough. Raw flour on baked goods isn't always a desirable addition due to the taste it imparts. You use wide sheets of plastic wrap with the rings. If you use an extra sheet of plastic wrap, your rings don't even get dirty. You also have a perfectly round crust when you are done -- no more trimming necessary - so one more time-saver. Clean-up is also a cinch when you don't have the mess of bench flour. -Grainlady

This is the easiest ever--and it is great! FIVE-MINUTE PIE CRUST (from The Joy of Cooking--1953 edition) Sift into bowl: 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 1-1/2 teaspoons salt Pour over the top, all at once, without mixing: ý cup salad oil (I use canola oil) 1/4 cup cold milk or water Stir ingredients until blended. Form them into a ball. Divide into 2 parts. Flatten them slightly. Roll the dough between sheets of waxed paper to the desired thinness. Patch tears, if any, by sticking them together or by adding a small piece of dough. Remove top paper. Invert rolled dough, paper and all, onto a pie pan. Remove paper. Proceed as with any pie crust. Prick both bottom and top crust with a fork. Fill the pie and place the top crust over it. (I love that you can roll it between sheets of waxed paper, without dealing with flour spread all over the place.)

My metal rolling pin is longer and specially for fondant. There are goods and bads for metal. It is VERY slick. Some doughs won't stick to it, especially if it's chilled. It's terrible for things like shortbread, because even flour won't stick...until you get a bit of vacuum and the whole thing sticks. The answer to that is a "sock". It's like stretchy cheesecloth and holds the flour. A sock can be a good thing if you're having sticking issues no matter what kind of rolling pin you're using. Thin rolling pins, like 1" in diameter, are useful for things like when you have small dough balls you're rolling into individual rounds, and when you're doing weird decorative stuff, but I wouldn't like to roll out a standard 9" pie with one. The more surface, the easier it is to keep it from sticking, and the better grasp you have. For pies, I usually use a wood dowel style, about 2.75' in diameter. For cookies, I like my old fashioned 3" or more textured man made one with ball bearings, and I've been known to use it for pies as well, but it's really too much. It depends on the stiffness of the dough. Pie pastry is more tender. Heavy wood grain holds flour really well. The textured doesn't as much as the real old ones did. You can chill any rolling pin not just metal and it will help. I'm surprised Anna's husband didn't like the Stella crust because it's very flaky and crisp. That one does have to be made exactly as written, though. It's the method, not the ingredients that makes the difference. It's also too big for the pie rings. You can use the method with other recipes.