Discovered the secret to non-soggy pie crust by swapping butter for cold shortening in my grandma's recipe last weekend

I always ended up with a greasy, limp bottom crust until I tried using half cold shortening instead of all butter like her recipe said, and it came out flaky and golden for the first time in three years, has anyone else messed with fat ratios in old family recipes?

3 comments

3 Comments

leodavis13d ago

Yeah I've been down that exact road with my grandmother's pie crust recipe. Took me about four failed Thanksgiving pies before I figured out the same thing. What worked for me was swapping half the butter for cold shortening just like you did, but also cutting it into the flour until it looks like coarse cornmeal with pea sized bits still in there. Then I add ice water tablespoon by tablespoon and barely mix it until it just holds together. The other trick I found is to chill the dough for at least two hours before rolling it out, otherwise the fat melts too fast in the oven.

lee_reed13d ago

leodavis, you mentioned cutting the shortening into the flour until it looks like cornmeal and I gotta say that's the part that always gets me. Nobody ever talks about the fact that your grandmother's hands were probably a lot different than yours - she had practiced that motion for fifty years and could feel exactly when the dough was right. But I think the real secret nobody's mentioning here is the temperature of your kitchen. If you're making pie crust in a warm house in July, no amount of chilling the dough is gonna save you from a soggy mess because the fat starts melting the second you touch it. I've started throwing my flour and bowl in the freezer for fifteen minutes before I even start mixing.

logan_ellis13d ago

Totally feel you on this one. Took me like four failed pies before I found out my grandma's recipe was basically lying about the butter. I did the same swap but went full shortening instead of half and it came out so flaky it almost crumbled apart when I cut it. The greasy bottom is the absolute worst, feels like you wasted all that effort for a soggy mess. I also learned the hard way that you gotta chill that dough for way longer than you think, otherwise it's game over before it hits the oven. Seriously, nobody tells you how much the fat ratio makes or breaks the whole thing.