GFCF Pie Crust

One of the Holy Grails of GF-land is the pie crust. Anyway, I've been trying to make one for years. The simplest ones have been the "European style" pressed-in tart shells, which are really just a cookie dough in a pan. They taste great, but don't fulfill my basic need to recreate the Pie Crust Of My Youth. Plus there is also the sheer challenge of the thing!

I've played with many types of crusts, and all of them were edible enough! But the recipe below is the best one to date. The crust is flakey and "buttery", though I swear I never used butter in it. You can use this crust with any filling.

This is one of the few recipes I do that uses a mix. I use Chebe bread mix, because the "pre-gelatinized tapioca flour" works a lot like gluten flour to make the dough easier to handle. In practical terms, this means you can get the dough into the pie pan in one piece.

There is always a tension between "easier to handle" and "easier to roll". Basically, the doughs that are easier to put in the pan, make a tougher crust. Rolling the dough out on a silicone sheet (shown here, an Exopat mat) with plastic wrap or wax paper on top (here we used plastic wrap, though it is hard to see) works well. One of those "pie dough bags" probably works better, but I don't have one yet. Using the plastic wrap top, it's easy to place the dough onto the top or bottom layer of the pie, even if the shell is very tender.

•	3 cups sweet rice flour

•	1/2 cup potato flour

•	1/2 cup Chebe bread mix

•

2 T Sugar

•

1 t salt.

Here I use rice flour, but really any flour works. Amaranth or sorghum flour works better than rice flour, but I tend to use rice flour because I can make it easily from plain white rice, which I usually have around. Sorghum flour is *amazing* but my dh doesn't digest it well, for reasons I have yet to fathom.

You can use potato starch or potato flour, either works. Most of the "workability" here comes from the Chebe mix.

Mix all these together, then proceed to the next step.

•	1 1/2 cups Un-Butter, COLD

OK, here is the crucial step. You need to "cut" 1.5 cups of fat into your flour. In the old days, this would be lard, and if you have good lard, by all means use it! Otherwise, I've used coconut oil or Un-Butter. Un-Butter makes a better crust, but the picture above shows pure coconut oil, which also works well.

Usually this is mixed in using a "pastry blender" or two knives. The idea is to chop the fat into tiny pieces. But not TOO tiny. You want them to be about the size of a pea. I tried to illustrate this in the pic above. When you roll this out, you want to see GLOBS of fat.

Now I know, this runs against your sense of craftsmanship. You want, really WANT, to chop those globs of fat into uniform pieces and make the crust all nice and even. Trust me, this will make for a very boring crust.

So: be lazy. Make BIG LUMPS.

•

3 eggs

•	3/4 cups water

•	1 ice cube

Mix these together in some container. The point here is that you want them COLD. The ice cube accomplishes that nicely! You want them cold so they don't meld the fat globs.

The ice cube probably won't melt all the way, in which case you can just toss it into the sink.

Pour this mix slowly into the butter/flour mix, mixing while you pour. The mix may or may not get fully mixed, but don't worry about it too much. Take whatever you have, and put it into some container, and stick it back into the fridge to get cold again. This also lets the moisture "mix" more evenly into the dough.

When you take the mix out of the fridge, let it warm for just a bit, the roll it out onto a nonstick mat. I use a dowel for a rolling pin, and also a sheet of plastic for the top layer. A "rolling bag" probably works better. You should see big lumps of fat. Roll one circle out for your bottom crust. If it is a one-crust pie, you'll then use weights and bake it, to be filled later. For a two crust pie, you'll fill it, then roll out another crust for the top.

In either case, use the top plastic sheet to transfer the crust. As I said before, if the crust is "tough enough" to transfer, it probably will be tough to eat too.

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