Lion House Pie Crust

Mmmmmmmm Pies!! Thanksgiving is coming up and I can't decide what kind of pie to make! Well, of course I will make the traditional pumpkin, but I always like to make a couple of other kinds too! Does anyone have a good recipe for German Chocolate Pie? Someone asked me the other day if I had ever tried it and no I haven't but I LOVE German Chocolate cake... might have to experiment with that. But anyway, back to this post, last month while canning my apple pie filling, I had enough pie filling leftover to make some apple pie empanada's, but I've had a struggle with pie crusts, I've had favorite recipes that turned out once or twice and then I go to make them again they don't, I've heard that the water HAS to be cold, to use butter, and another said to use shortening, oh who do you believe and which recipe do you use? THEN... I accidentally ran across this video on You tube, can't even remember how I did, but the lady made pie crust look soooo easy I had to give it a try. It was delicious AND easy... watch how she rolls the dough out! It seriously works just like that!  AND yes, I used the specific flours and all 4 different varieties of fat... after all, to make the recipe like they do, you need to FOLLOW the recipe. This is the recipe I'm going to use for my Thanksgiving pies this year.... I think I'll do Pumpkin, Pecan (or German Chocolate.... maybe add chocolate and coconut to my usual pecan recipe? hmmmm) and maybe a lemon meringue! YUM!

Lion House Pie Crust

1 Tablespoon Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon non-fat dry milk

**1-1/2 cups pastry flour --See note at the bottom of the recipe 1-1/2 cup bread flour

1-1/2 cup bread flour

Mix the all the ingredients above together in a large bowl.

1/4 cup margarine

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup shortening

1/3 cup Lard

Cut in the fat with a pastry blender; or your hands until it's incorporated and looks grainy.

Add  1/2 cup ROOM temperature water and gently mix with hands.

If dough is too wet or soft, chill in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour.

Divide the dough in half. Roll out on counter top that is covered with flour. Form a disc with your dough and flour each side. Roll up once and then back. Make sure the dough is floured again on both sides to prevent sticking; then turn so the length is going in the opposite direction than it was. Then roll again making a criss-cross  with the rolling pin. (Watch the video) Place in pie pan.

Fill with desired fruit and roll out the other piece and place on the top. Crimp the edges however you like.

Bake your pie as directed on the recipe you are using.

**I had a hard time finding pastry flour so I looked up substitutions on the Internet. The different kinds of flour have different amounts of proteins in them. Cake flour has about 5 to 8 %, Pastry flour is a little above that , Bread flour has a lot, like 12%. So they recommended using 1 to 1 ratio of Cake flour and all purpose flour (which has around 9%) , so for the recipe I used 3/4 cup of each.