Lard! Where have you been all my life??! Sure, other pie crusts have been pretty successful, but I have never made a crust that was so easy to work with. I used a pastry cutter and fork to mix the dough and rolled it right away. It baked up flaky, tender, and delicious.
After visiting Lancaster Central Market yesterday and buying a quart of lard from Country Meadows Farms, I decided to venture out and try my first pie crust made with lard. This is probably how they did it long ago, right? I wanted to make it by hand, too…no food processors or stand mixers.
I considered a blueberry pie, but I had already decided to freeze my blueberries to make jam at a future time. Plan B: a sour cherry pie from the cherries I bought at Market from Stoner’s.
Although I swore by thickening with tapioca last time I made a cherry pie, I decided to go what I think is a more traditional route this time and thickened with flour. You can see that there is a bit of cherry “ooze”, but I certainly wouldn’t call it runny. I would just call it juicy. ;)
I used this recipe for the crust: Lard Pie Crust from cooks.com (Click the link for the full recipe. It’s literally flour, a bit of salt, lard, and water!)
I based my filling recipe on something I found on this website: Favorite Homestead Farm Tart Cherry Recipes. I altered it a bit. Not that I’m an expert, but I highly recommend tasting your fruit before you make a fruit pie. It’s tough to know how much sugar to add if you don’t know how naturally tart or sweet your fruit is. In my case, I had some super tart cherries this time. Here’s what I did for the filling:
1 quart sour cherries, pitted
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
dash salt
I also put a few small pieces of butter on top of the fruit before I put the top crust on the pie. I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top of the whole pie right before it went in the oven. It baked (on a rimmed baking sheet in case there were any drips) at 425 for 45 minutes. I baked it on a lower rack in the oven because I’ve heard this helps the bottom crust to cook evenly. It cooled for an hour or two on the cooling rack, then for another few hours in the refrigerator before we cut in. It seriously might be my favorite thing I’ve made, ever.
Lard, I wonder if people know you have less saturated fat than butter. I love how you are naturally occurring, not a bunch of processed chemicals. Mostly, I love what you do for a pie crust.
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