I blame the pie
Posted by Tom Moertel Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:45:00 GMT
Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. But I have a good excuse.
This weekend I baked myself an apple pie. I have the proof right here:
(Yeah, that’s an all-butter crust. Thank you, Sherry Yard.)
So you can see the problem. Whenever I have an amazing idea that simply must be shared on the blog and I start typing it up, it’s only a few minutes before I realize that instead of typing, I could be eating pie. And then, of course, the typing stops.
Then, when I’m eating the pie, I think to myself, Eating pie really is better than typing stuff up. No comparison, really. I mean, none at all. So, if I’m being perfectly honest with you, until the pie is gone the blog will suffer.
But I’m down to the final slice, so posting should resume shortly.
Thank you for your understanding.
I offer my services in helping you rid of this pie sooner. You know where to find me.
Butter crusts are very nice… but have you ever tried lard, or 50/50 butter and lard? Lard is out of fashion now for cooking but it makes amazing crusts!
Paul, I have not tried using lard in pie crusts, but people whom I trust have said good things about it. Good lard, however, is tricky to find these days. The folks at Cook’s Illustrated had this to say about it:
One of the primary motivations for using lard or shortening in pie crust is to improve flakiness, but I have found that uber-flakiness can also be had with butter if you use the right techniques. The flaky-cam image below shows the evidence:
Flaky butter crust close-up photo (click me to see photo)
Given that butter tastes so much better than shortening, then, I can see no reason to use shortening in my crusts. Good lard, on the other hand, contributes its own kind of flavor (I am told), a flavor that I think I might prefer to butter in savory dishes.
Your crust does look pretty tasty! Our butter crusts tasted very nice, but they tend to be a little flat and chewy. We bought some Armour lard that was shelf-stable and did a half-butter, half-lard crust with “Presidente” butter. I was concerned that “shelf-stable” lard would taste nasty, but it did not seem to have any rancid taste or flavor. It won my wife second prize (stuffed with tart peaches). The “leaf lard” sounds worth trying. We probably need to experiment some more. Fortunately, I’m willing to dispose of my wife’s failures as well as successes (because even the failures are pretty good!)
My Grandmother’s pastries were always sublime, and she attributed this to the use of lard. I think the trick there, though, was that she patronized a grumpy old-world butcher shop just down the street, and they knew what they were doing when it came to pig bits. I’ve used the Armour Lard that can often be found in groceries, but I’ve only gotten excellent results when I’ve gotten lard from a local butcher. It helps to develop meaningful relationships with those folks – they can help with things you wouldn’t have thought to ask about.
For myself, I’ve got similar problems with homemade oatmeal cookies. Because: when you’ve got oatmeal cookies, why eat anything else?