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'Absolutely Perfect Foolproof Vinegar Pie Crust'
Published: 12/5/2011 7:30 AM
Last Modified: 12/2/2011 9:55 PM

All that's missing is some pecan-pie filling! And the baking part, I reckon. (MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World)

Preheat your oven, and grab some flour -- we're gonna make pie crusts! Or, at least, dirty-up the kitchen trying.

Last week, I told y'all via blog about my Mamaw Walter's nigh-to-perfect pie crust, the recipe for which was apparently never written down before she passed away in 2000. Since then, I've been on a search for it.

I appreciate those of you who responded with recipe suggestions, like Grace, whose 90-year-old mama swears by the 1-2-3 method for a pie crust: 1 cup flour, 2 tablespoons shortening and 3 tablespoons water.

"Her pie crusts are FABULOUS," Grace said.

That one sounds simple enough for my crazy head to follow, but I'm also going to try the following two. I imagine I'll be filling mine with pecans and/or chocolate. Let me know how yours go!

Jon's Pie Crust

"I developed this pie crust over the years, and it consistently delivers," Jon wrote last week about the following recipe, which makes either one two-crust pie or two single-crust pies. He even won some awards with it when he lived in Santa Fe, where he owned and operated a bed-and-breakfast inn for several years.

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 oz. (6 tablespoons) cold lard
3 oz. (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
1/3 cup cold water (approximately)

1. Place flour and salt in Cuisinart fitted with the metal blade. Pulse to mix.
2. Add lard and butter in small pieces (say, tablespoon-size pieces). Pulse until fat is the size of peas, but don't over-pulse.
3. At this point, you should be able to pinch a bit of the flour mixture together and have it hold its shape but barely. ("You can see where a hands-on lesson has value," Jon wrote. "That's how I learned, and that's another story!")
4. Add the chilled water all at once, and pulse until the dough just comes together into a large but still somewhat broken mass.
5. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and lovingly gather it all into your two hands, squeezing together gently and rotating on the board until it is a nice large ball. Cut in half horizontally. Flatten both pieces down into discs about 3/4-inch high. Wrap in wax paper, then place in a Ziploc bag to rest and chill a while in the refrigerator.
6. Bring up toward room temperature, and roll out when it feels soft enough.

Teresa's Absolutely Perfect Foolproof Vinegar Pie Crust

"Don't let the vinegar in the name fool you," Teresa wrote in a note recently on her Facebook page, which she told me about after I asked for a great pie crust recipe.

"You cannot taste it at all," she said of the vinegar. "I use the largest Kitchen Aide Mixer with the dough hook, but used to make it by the old-fashioned method of bowls and dough cutter. Takes about seven minutes in the mixer."

4 cups flour
1 3/4 cups Crisco (solid shortening)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 egg
1/2 cup very cold water

1. With fork or dough cutter, mix the first four ingredients in a large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, beat water and remaining ingredients. Add to first mixture, and blend to cut in until it forms a ball. Do not over mix or over-handle dough, which will make it tough.
3. Remove from bowl, and form into one large ball. Divide into portions for pie, cobblers, pie shells, etc. Form a ball from each portion, and roll on a generously floured pie cloth, dusting rolling pin with flour as needed.
4. If you refrigerate it first, even better. If using a mixer and dough hook, add water mixture slowly, bit at a time.

Dough can be stored up to three days in fridge, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, or frozen as long as necessary, probably no longer than a couple of months, said Teresa, whose recipe makes enough pie dough for two 9-inch double crust pies and one 9-inch shell, as long as it is properly wrapped.

"I add foil to the outside of the plastic wrap if I freeze it for extra protection," she said. "My mother always said that the less you handle any kind of dough, the better it is, and it won't get tough."

You want the dough to be pliable and easy to handle, she said, "so go easy on it."

Peace, love and vinegar pie crusts ... XOXO

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Retired TPS in Texas (last year)

Thanks, Jason, my late mother in law, who gave me that recipe, is probably smiling down on us! Happy to share a great pie crust with every one.

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Living Wright

While other kids were watching "The Smurfs," Scene Writer Jason Ashley Wright was tuned in to "Style with Elsa Klensch." By fourth grade, he knew he wanted to write, and spent almost three years publishing a weekly teen-oriented magazine, Teen-Zine -- circulation: 2. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, he became the medical reporter and teen board coordinator for the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, a Gannett newspaper. Eight months later, with visions of Elsa dancing in his head, he applied for the fashion writer position at the Tulsa World, where he began working on Aug. 3, 1998. He is now a general assignment reporter for Scene.

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