Homemade Pie Crust With Lard

There is nothing better than homemade pie crust! In fact, often the whole fate of the pie rests on whether or not the crust it good! So learn here how to make a delicious homemade pie crust with lard.

I have always loved baking and some of my favorite memories as a kid are of baking pies with my great grandma.

My great grandma makes the absolute best apple pies and if you’d like to check out the recipe go to Grandma’s Perfect Apple Pie.

I remember watching her make crust and dying to help and she’d never allow it. She’d let me sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on the apples and measure out ingredients, but I better not dare touch the dough!

And it wasn’t until later in life when I started making pies on my own that I finally realized why she was so serious.

But it’s no wonder why her pie crust was always perfect!

If you’ve never made a homemade pie crust, the most important part is not messing with it too much. The more you stir, blend, and kneed the tougher the crust will turn out.

So the less you do the better it will be!

How to Make to Homemade Pie Crust With Lard:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup lard
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup ice water

Directions:

1. Add 2 cups of flour to a large mixing bowl. Then add in one cup of lard in chunks.
2. Use a pastry blender or a fork and cut the lard into the flour just until it has formed coarse crumbs. It may seem like there are large chunks of lard but that’s okay!
3. Next, add in a few tablespoons of ice water and mix slightly. Continue adding one tablespoon at a time until the dough sticks together.
4. Once the dough has come together, use your hands and press the dough into a ball.
5. Then split the dough in half with one half slightly larger which will be for the bottom crust.
6. Put both halves of dough into the fridge and chill for 15 minutes.
7. After chilling the dough, roll out a pie crust mat (which is optional, but I love it) and sprinkle it with flour. I love the pie crust mat because it makes clean up SUPER easy, but it is also great for measuring out your pie crust into a perfect circle.
8. Then lightly flour your hands and rolling pin.
9. Take the bigger half of dough, which is for the bottom crust and roll it out on the floured surface. If the dough starts sticking to the rolling pin or surface, just add more flour.
10. Once the bottom crust is rolled out, place it in your pie plate.
11. Fill the crust with whatever pie filling you are making such as apple pie filling or peach pie filling, and then repeat the same process and roll out your top crust.
12. Once the top crust is rolled out place it on top and cut off the extra dough along the edges, leaving about 1/2 an inch to fold the bottom crust over the top crust, and press together.
13. Then you can make whatever pie crust edge you like best, but folding the bottom crust over the top will hold in all the filling and keep it from oozing out the sides!

Recipe Notes: If you only need a single crust you can use the exact pie crust recipe but cut it in half.

Why Lard Over Butter or Crisco?

I originally made this same recipe with crisco and it came out good! But then my family starting cutting out all vegetable oil and so I thought I’d try out lard.

Which is surprising that I didn’t try sooner because I love old fashioned ways of cooking. And lard used to be used for almost everything.

Anyways, the pie crust came out better than ever before using crisco!

It has consistently came out soft, flaky, and delicious!

Butter crusts on the other hand are known for being the best tasting of all pie crust recipes.

But the downside is that butter is harder to work with while making a crust. It melts fast and it gets hard quickly as the dough chills.

So of all the options for crust I almost always choose my homemade pie crust with lard, and it never disappoints!

Quick Tips for Making Pie Crust

• Don’t overwork or over mix the dough, it will become tough.
• Slowly add water because too much water will make the dough too sticky to work with.
• Chilling the dough will make it easier to roll out.

My Favorite Pie Making Products

Delicious Pie Recipes

Grandma’s Perfect Apple Pie

Homemade Peach Pie