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

I used the Foolproof Pie Dough recipe and in the end it came out great....really light, flavorful and flaky. However....I had a *horrible* time working with it. It seemed like the right consistency before I ever added the vodka and the water. After the liquid was added, it was VERY sticky and wet. I'm sure I followed the directions and did everything correctly....I weighed the flour and was careful with my measurements. I tried rolling it between parchment paper first and that was a disaster. I got out the other half and rolled it using tons of flour to keep it from sticking and tearing so badly. It would soften after about 2 minutes outside the refrigerator/freezer. After returning it to the freezer several times, I was finally able to coax it into something that looked like a pie shell (I made a chocolate pie with meringue). I put it in the freezer until it got solid again, put it in the oven frozen with parchment and pie weights and it did finally come out beautifully. My question is this...did anyone else have a devil of a time with it? Can I cut the amount of vodka and water in half? Any help appreciated. And...thank you for the recipe, the final result was awesome...I did want to throw it all out for a brief period of time, though.

Lars, I am going to have to try that one... too interesting not to, lol.. I buy cottage cheese to have on hand for a childhood comfort food of spaghetti and cottage cheese, so next time I'll buy a large container and try it. I'll report back. I like the Nathans crust, and that perfect butter crust that Terri posted is about what I usually do. I don't usually use a recipe since I've made so many pies, often in large numbers. That crust that uses 5#'s of flour is a good one too. I love oatmeal so I'm going to have to try Ann's Maple Oat one too. We picked up a bunch of apples today at the heritage farm, and I think that would be good with them. Thanks for posting it Terri. The only one I don't care for is the one that uses vodka. I've tried it a couple times and just didn't care for it. Didn't care for the taste and texture could have been better. I drink vodka, so the taste shouldn't have been a problem, lol. I do better winging it.. smiles. Those pie crust pinwheels were made with the last of that crust I had frozen. I didn't even like it used as that but luckily Christy liked them. Wasn't my technique, since I have no trouble with a light hand anyplace else, plus I made it twice, had to give it a good chance. But, hey, that's what this place is about. Not everyone will like every recipe.

linelle, if I lived in another state, the vodka would be cheaper, but here in Michigan it's taxed like crazy. I've been known to bring a bottle back from Chicago, but that's illegal. Ahem. Here a pint is $11 and that's for the cheap Popov stuff. Another poster said you had to have good vodka, that affected the taste, so that ups the price. And I'd rather die of whatever ailment than to ever drink vodka, LOL, although I did spring $22 and buy a bottle to make Lemoncello. We drank a little of it mixed with cranberry juice and I ended up dumping most of it out after about 14 months in my refrigerator, I'm told THAT won't last forever. Hey, I wonder how lemoncello would work in pie crust, for a lemon meringue pie. Hmmmm..... Annie