Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Gluten Free Pie Crust


6 oz. Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
2 tsp. Xanthum gum
2 oz. shortening (Spectrum Organic Coconut Oil)
2 oz. lard*
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. granulated sugar
2 Tbs. cold water
1 approximate teaspoon unfiltered apple vinegar with the rest of Tbs. cold water

*4 oz. of shortening seems to work just fine, instead of a ½ and ½ mix.

Weigh the flour, shortening and lard into a bowl on a kitchen scale. Add the other ingredients except for the water and vinegar.

Cut the shortening and lard together with the flour, xanthum gum, sugar and salt until it is like coarse meal. Chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

Add the 2 Tbs. of water. Measure an approximate 1 teaspoon of vinegar in the Tbs. measure and fill the rest with cold water. Once all 3 Tbs of the water/vinegar is added, knead until the dough holds together. Sprinkle in more water if the mix is dry. Sprinkle the rolling surface with GF flour and roll out to desired shape. This transfers to the pan more easily if you wrap the dough around the rolling pin. Crimp or decorate and fill. Makes a single crust.





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Just a few thoughts
I added the sugar to make the crust brown. Don't know if this is really necessary, or if it worked. I opted to use lard and the coconut oil as I wanted to see how it tasted. The little "rag cookies" (pie dough left over from shaping the crust, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and baked for 8-10 minutes) were very light and crumbly. If you can use butter, I'd probably recommend fats that are something closer to my original pie crust (not GF).


Rather nice with a glass of rice milk, but maybe next time I'll try less lard. (Later note: replacing the lard with coconut shortening worked just fine. I'll leave it up to the cook.) The shape held better than I expected. I was ready to fix a bunch of tears but only had one. Also, I'm guessing about the xanthum gum, seemed like the right amount to condition the dough and I am regularly using vinegar as a dough conditioner. I used this for an experimental pumpkin pie. The filling needs some adjustments, but the crust was delightful. Even my husband liked it.

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