Stanley’s Flaky Pie Crust Recipe

Directions as Stanley wrote them

Put a bunch of ice cubes into a pyrex with a bunch of water.

Stretch out two rectangles of cling wrap onto your counter.

One stick of chilled butter + 4oz of chilled shortening (or two sticks of butter, or 8oz of chilled lard)  This is the “fat”, and pie makers will argue endlessly about the choice of “fat”.

Cut the “fat” into small pieces (or use a method I just learned about from my friend Karen Amarotico-- use a cheese grater)

Dump the fat into the flour mixture and blend with a pastry cutter until the mixture is like gravelly  cornmeal. 

Over blending makes the pie crust less flaky.  Some people use their hands, but I think this heats up the fat too much. Don’t do anything resembling “kneading”.  Gluten strands are your enemy.  Don’t listen to people that suggest that adding vinegar makes it all easier.

Take that Pyrex of really cold water and begin sprinkling into the flour mixture and stirring  rapidly (with a big fork). 

I don’t measure-- just gradually add until the stuff begins to cling together. 

Towards the end, I use my hands to separate the dough into two slightly unequal balls-- big one is the bottom crust, smaller the top.

Put each ball on top of the cling wrap, and wrap each one up-- flattening them into a round disk.  Pop them into the fridge for at least one half hour-- the dough needs to rest, it has been a stressful time for them.

Use this 1/2 hour to prepare the filling and this beyond the scope of this missive. 

Rolling out pie crust from scratch is just practice, but I never use wax paper or a pastry cloth-- that is for the weak.  Just flour a good wooden surface, and your wood rolling pin as needed.  It takes just a little practice.