Making Homemade Pie Crust

[markethej]

I'm going to make a pie tomorrow and have a recipe that calls for lard and butter. By lard do you think they mean the rendered pork fat that I can be easily in a store? In LA it's put out by Farmer John.

Would love to try the leaf lard thing that I've heard about but never had the foresight to mail-order it.

[cee]

I use 1/2 butter and 1/2 Crisco, and refrigerate both so they're cold before I use them. Hope that helps. :)

[hannaone]

Lard is pig fat. Crisco is often used as a sub.

[hilltowner]

There are two main types of lard - leaf lard and fatback. Leaf lard is preferable for pastries because it does not have so much pig taste. fatback is essentially rendered bacon fat. I am guessing that the store bought fat is fatback, in which case, it would not be so good for a pie crust. Too much bacon taste. Go with Crisco, but know next time that leaf lard is the way to go.

[markethej]

Yeah, I DO NOT want to use Crisco. The ratio of butter to lard is very high: it only calls for 2 tbls. of lard.

[Quine]

I agree with the half butter/ half solid shortening for the crust. In general, I never thought lard added much of anything to warrent the use of it in pie crust, unless you already had it on hand.

[Densible]

the best pie crust I ever made was half crisco/half butter, very cold and then put dough in fridge until cold again and then roll out in tins and in the freezer for 1 hr, blind bake until just golden. Amazing crust-better than the filling.

[jhop]

i render fat from leaf lard bought at the union square greenmarket. it's easy, you just kind of cut it up, turn it on, it melts. i use about 3 tablespoons to 7 of butter. half and half is too much, the crust will exude grease at that point. 3 is even pushing it but it has been giving me great results.

[janeer]

The commercial lard packed by Goya, Armour, and others is NOT "fatback," and is an acceptable substitute if you cannot get, like jhop, leaf lard readily to do your own rendering, or don't wish to. It is not as wonderful, but fine. If you live near or have access to a pork farmer or butcher that sells at lot of pork, many make their own lard: ask.
Lard is a superior fat for pie crust; I often make 100% lard crusts, especially for tree-fruit pies, and has many other essential uses as well (like Mexican food). For most uses, I too combine lard and butter, varying the proportions according to what I'm making. Roughly half and half is fine.
www.littlecomptonmorings.blogspot.com

[markethej]

Thank you so much for your considered answer! I live in Los Angeles so getting access to leaf lard has proven very difficult. I'm going to have to travel outside LA county to get to a pig farmer I can deal with directly or to a butcher that deals directly with a pig farmer who can accomodate special orders life lead lard or cuts with skin still attached. Even the top true indipendent butchers' (not supermarket, some wholesalers) here couldn't help me.