Pie :  High on my mind

Rhubarb pie is my favorite, perhaps because it comes first among  fruits that kick off pie season every summer.  The boys tore into this one before I could get a full-pie photo.  No matter; it was an  experiment.   I wanted to try Daisy Pastry Flour with a variety of different recipes  for pie crust that I’ve been collecting all year long, just waiting for fresh fruit season.  The crust for this rhubarb pie was made with all butter and white Daisy Pastry Flour.  Look for it under Jay’s Flaky Pie Crust in Recipes.

I re-discover every time that pie dough made with Daisy Flour is easily rolled and worked.  There are none of those cracks and patches that cause the beginning pie baker to give up the task. For this pie, I also used Jay's Flaky Pie Crust recipe (click here to go to this pie recipe) with half butter for the fat and half whole wheat for the pastry flour.

Jay, my mother was the best pie maker in the tiny town of Orrville Ohio. Since it’s been a good 50 years since she was with us to make a pie, I share her recipe even though I realize that she used homogenated fat.   It was new in those days and she loved it because it was a far cry better than the lard that her mother used to make pies on the farm.  Lard made a great flaky crust but oh the calories and oh that strong taste. Today, we would substitute oil or butter or a natural ingredient. One DaisyFlour pie baker uses only butter for her pie crusts. Another baker told us to try using leaf lard.