Simple pie pastry recipe using beef tallow (and butter)

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Make excellent pie pastry with such simple, wholesome ingredients: beef tallow, salt, flour, ice water, and butter.

Make a simple whole food version of pie pastry using beef tallow and butter. (I might add that it’s absolutely delicious!)

Pie is love

Change my mind about this. Wait, stop. I actually don’t think you can.

Many of you have been following this blog for years. (Humblest thank-yous, blushes, awkward shrugs and virtual hugs for my gentle readers.) You may feel like you know my folks, Jim and Elna, as I write about them often. Dad has been making fancy French rolling pins for my blog shop for several years.

My folks are going through a rough time of it. Dear sweet little mom is having memory issues–not something any of us ever anticipated–and Dad is caring for her around the clock. Some days, Mom does just fine. Others, she hankers to “go home” all the day long. Nothing anybody says will change her notion that they are merely visiting the home that they’ve actually been living in for over three decades. The current visit is long enough, says she. “When are we going home?” She asks. Over and over.

Mom just turned 89, and Dad is 90.

I know what homesickness feels like, but I can’t imagine feeling it day after day after day. Poor Mom. And poor Dad.

When I see that Dad is about to crack from his patience being tested all day long, I have one thought: I ought to make dad a pie. Any type will do. My Dad is a inveterate pie-fancier, and has been ever since I met him (okay, for as long as I can remember). The man just loves pie. Mom used to make the best pie (sad sigh). Nobody’s else’s pies came close to hers. Shoot. Even today, I rarely make pie because I don’t think it measures up . . . to Mom’s.

But a girl can try…

But…guess what? I’ve been experimenting with making pie pastry out of beef tallow (lard works well too) and butter. I believe Mom probably used lard primarily, but there were probably years that she used Crisco shortening, too.

I’ve been making my own beef tallow from the beef fat that comes with the beef that we order every year. This tallow is creamy, white, and I’ve made the happy discovery that it makes beautiful pie crusts! (Though I make them myself!)

Public Service Announcement: I love to read recipe books, and I’ve learned a bunch about why you might want to consume beef tallow and lard, rather than vegetable oils and Crisco, in the following books:

• Deep Nutrition by Catherine Shanahan, M.D.
• Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon

Now! Let’s learn how to…

Go to work with that pastry cutter!

Make Pie Crust Healthy Again!

hehee

If we’re going to make pie–and we are going to make pie, dang it!–we might as well make it with healthier ingredients.

Here are the quick instructions, and if you like to print off the entire recipe, scroll on down!

Supplies:

• pastry cutter
• medium-sized bowl
• rolling pin
• pie plate
• waxed paper (optional, but it does make rolling out your pastry easier)

It’s easy to make a beautiful beef tallow like this, yourself, at home. A monkey could do it. 🙂

Ingredients:

• White and/or white whole wheat flour (I personally like to use half white, and half white whole wheat flour.)
• salt
• butter, cold
• beef tallow (or lard), cold
• ice water, very cold

1. First, sock your butter, tallow, and ice water into the freezer for an hour or two. If you have room, put your flour in there too. The colder all your ingredients are, the better!
2. Measure your flour into a medium-sized bowl, and stir in the salt.
3. Add butter and tallow (lard can be used, as well) and use a pastry cutter to cut it in.
4. Add ice water and mix with a fork, then form a ball with your hands.
5. Lightly dust your surface with flour, then roll out the dough with your rolling pin. (*pro tip* I roll out my pie pastry between two sheets of waxed paper. When it is as thin as I want it, I use the waxed paper to lift it and transfer into the pie plate, peeling the two layers of waxed paper off as I slide it in.)
6. Note: If you’re making a custard pie (pumpkin, for example, hmm…coconut cream, French silk, cress, etc.), you’ll need to pre-bake the crust for 15 minutes at 375 degrees. I poke the crust all over with a fork before I slide it into the oven. (Other pies do not need this pre-baking, and neither do quiches, as a matter of fact.)

This pastry works well for pie, but also for apple dumplings!

That’s it! Easy-peasy, huh?

Don’t forget to Pin it!

This simple pie pastry recipe works well with apple dumplings, too!

• ← How to make tallow out of beef fat (easy-peasy crock pot recipe!)