Page 30 - Pie It Forward: Pies, Tarts, Tortes, Galettes, and Other Pastries Reinvented

This is where vegetable shortening comes in. It’s incredibly stable
at high temperatures, which means that a crust made with a

percentage of shortening will hold its shape better, and its edges and

cutouts will stay pristine while baking. It’s also much cheaper than

butter. That said, shortening leaves a telltale film in your mouth,

which some find less than pleasant. So weigh your options and
priorities when choosing all butter or part shortening.

In America, the long-lost and glorious pastry fat is leaf lard. It’s

made of the fat that surrounds a porker’s kidneys and, when added

to flour to make pastry, combines the best of butter’s flaky and

tender qualities with nuttiness and a soupçon of bacon goodness
that’s hard to beat. (The butter-to-leaf-lard ratio has to be exact. I’ve

found that adding more than 25 percent lard will produce a crust

redolent of a pig roast instead of simply adding a hint of salty

goodness.)

Unfortunately, leaf lard is terribly hard to come by in the United
States these days, and often when you do get your hands on it, it’s

poorly processed—it tastes of pigpen instead of pork goodness

when it bakes off. However, well-rendered lard is glorious. Prairie

Pride Farm in Minnesota is a great online resource for it; otherwise,

ask your butcher if he’s got any.
Suet is another lovely option. It’s the rendered fat of a cow’s kidney

and produces similarly tasty results when added to pastry. If you

have the wherewithal to render your own fat, I highly recommend the

effort. You’ll not regret the gorgeous deliciousness it adds to your

crust.

But there’s nothing wrong with sticking to the easy-to-find options:
butter and vegetable shortening.