Piecrust for thanksgiving pumpkin pie

A good versatile piecrust for savoury or sweet pies. You will need to handle with care if you roll it out or you can just press it into the pie dish with your fingers. I haven’t tested this yet with non-dairy fat – I’ll post results when I do.

Adjust the amounts of pastry to suit your pie dish using the same amount of fat as you would normally.

This piecrust freezes well. Roll any leftovers into the size you want and freeze flat for an easy quick pie or tart – place flat on baking sheet and pile with sliced bell peppers and goats cheese for a quick easy meal. Alternatively, freeze in a ball but then you will need to let it defrost before using., or slice pieces off for and press into shape.

Ingredients

100g urid lentil flour

100g fine cornmeal if it is course ground you will get a gritty texture)

100g tapioca flour

150 butter

water if needed

Method

Whizz fat into flours in a food processor until it looks like breadcrumbs, or rub in by hand. If it will hold together easily without water then carry on and press it into a ball. Wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap and leave to rest for fifteen minutes if possible to allow time for the flours to absorb the moisture, which will help the dough not distort in baking. If it needs water add a little at time until it forms a softish dough.

If you don’t have enough moisture in the pastry will crack and be hard to roll out. If you have too much it will be sticky and squidgy so just add some more tapioca flour and use plenty of flour on your board and rolling pin. If you are just pressing the dough into shape it doesn’t really matter.

You can bake blind using baking parchment and beans if you want, but the dough doesn’t tend to bubble the way wheat pastry will so lining and weighting is less important. For quiche or other pies where the filling needs less time than the pastry, or you want to be sure the pastry is crisp, bake until just beginning to go golden in a medium oven, 180C (about ten minutes). Add filling then bake until filling is set or cooked. – this will vary according to your filling recipe – long and cool for cheese cake, short and hot for jam tarts.

This produces a crisp light pastry. If you use Doves Farm gf flour the dough is easy to handle but the pastry is very hard and people tend to eat the filling and leave the pastry.

I have used this open tarts, for individual steak pies, apple pies and quiches. It is good to eat and copes well with being frozen in both cooked and uncooked states. I made several individual steak pies and quiches and we ate some before freezing and some after they had been frozen and we couldn't tell the difference.