I finally gave up on my grandma's pie crust recipe after 10 years of trying

Last month I was at my aunt's house for Thanksgiving and she pulled out a store-bought crust. Everyone was raving about how flaky it was. My grandma would roll over in her grave if she heard that. But here's the thing, I've been making her lard-based crust for a decade and it always ends up tough or soggy in the middle. Last week I tried the refrigerated Pillsbury kind just to see what the fuss was about. It came out perfect on the first try, no tears, no shrinkage. I still feel guilty about it but honestly my apple pies have never looked better. Has anyone else secretly switched from a family recipe to something easier?

2 comments

2 Comments

perry.jessica23d agoMost Upvoted

Oh wow, now I feel way less guilty about ditching my mom's scratch biscuits!

park.tara22d ago

My grandma's lard crust recipe took me like 8 tries before I realized it needed ice water, not cold tap water lol. But even then the texture was hit or miss. I switched to shortening based crusts about 5 years ago and honestly nobody in my family even noticed. For biscuits I found that freezing the butter and grating it into the flour was the real game changer, not some secret family step. Maybe try keeping the core technique but swapping out the fat source, that's how I saved my sanity.