How to Make a Good Pie Topping/Crust

Our answer

Pastry and pie crust recipes vary enormously, some use all butter, some a combination of butter and pie lard/lard or vegetable shortening/solid vegetable fat. Butter tends adds a good flavour to the pastry but lard and vegetable shortening give a flakier crust (this is as they tend to coat the flour molecules more readily in fat which helps to prevent the flour proteins forming tough gluten strands).

A combination of butter and lard/vegetable shortening gives the best combination to produce flavourful, flaky pastry and a basic pastry crust recipe is to use half the weight of fat to flour, so for each 100g flour you would use 25g each of butter and lard/shortening (for the US for each cup of flour use 3 tablespoons butter and 3 tablespoons vegetable shortening). Also use ice cold water mixed with a little lemon juice to bind the pastry, just adding enough to form a smooth dough, and if possible rest the dough in the refrigerator for an hour (wrapped in clingfilm or plastic wrap), then bring back to room temperature before rolling out.