Perfect Pie Crust (Well... Almost Perfect!)

This recipe was a bit of a challenge, but since my hubby loves pie,

I was highly motivated to come up with something workable.

PIE PASTRY

2 1/2 cups rice flour

1 1/2 cups tapioca starch

1 tsp xanthan gum

4 Tbsp sugar1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups lard - cut into cubes

2 eggs

1 Tbsp vinegar

1/2 cup water

METHOD:

-Combine dry ingredients together.

-Cut in lard until the size of small peas.

-Whisk eggs, vinegar and water together and stir into flour mixture until just blended. Do not over blend. Because rice flour does not absorb liquid the same way as wheat (it does not absorb as much or as fast), the dough may be a little wet looking at first, but in a minute it absorbs the extra.

-Now the handling of the dough... typically gluten free pastry is very hard to handle, however, I find this dough fairly workable. You can simply press the dough into a pie plate or you can roll it out. The following instructions are how I roll out this dough. This is not a tidy process, and it really helps if you hold your tongue in the corner of your mouth while you work. :-)

1. Start with a round piece of dough on a well floured cutting board - I use tapioca starch on the board.

2. Roll out the dough on the board, keeping the general round shape. Of course, if your dish is a different shape than a pie plate, roll out your dough accordingly.

3. Take a pancake flipper and slide it under the dough on the board. Do this all around your piece of dough to loosen it completely from the board.

4. Hold the board over the pie plate and start the dough sliding off the board onto the pie plate. Go slow because if you get it in the wrong place, it will probably fall apart while you attempt to straiten it.

5. Finish letting the dough slide off the board.

6. Straiten the dough - fitting it to the dish. Trim the edges.

7. You now have pie shells ready to fill. Use the same method for the top crust of the pie, wetting the edge of the bottom crust so that they will stick together. Crimp edges and cut slits in the top. The same method works for pot pie or deep dish pie.