Flaky pastry

I’ve been in a pie-making mood! We’ve had dessert pies a plenty and we’ve used pastry for other historic recipes. I’m finding that a lot of the recipes that I’ve been posting recently involve pie pastry, but I haven’t listed a recipe for that. So, this is my basic go-to recipe for flaky pastry.

(If you have leftover scraps of pastry from trimming your pie shells, here’s what you can do with them!)

Ingredients

2.5 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar (for sweet only - optional)
1 cup lard (or other solid fat)
1/3 cup + 2 tbsp cold water

Instructions

Mix together flour, salt and sugar (if using). Cut lard (or other fat) into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or knife. Add most of the water and mix together with a spatula until it forms a ball (add the rest of the water as needed). 

Roll out and use! 

I like lard for pastry. I used to use shortening, and occasionally butter, but lard makes the flakiest pastry.

This recipe is enough for top and bottom of a 9″ pie, or the bottom of two pies, if not covered. It last in the fridge for a several days too, which is handy when you only need half the recipe at present.

The verdict

A classic flaky pastry that comes together quickly!