Yay! it's holiday season!
As a baker that means lots of baking. And as a pie girl- that means pie crust! I have to admit I've always been a lazy baker. Back in the easy (non Vegan & Gluten-Free) days of boxed mixes and frozen pie crusts, I would cut corners where it wouldn't matter too much. My kids actually begged me for boxed brownies more times than I'd like to admit. And when it came to pie crusts, I left the from-scratch-pie-crust making up to my Gramma Lucy. She was an A-MAZING baker. And at the holidays she would bake for weeks ahead of time! She would make dozens and dozens of pumpkin pies... just so that at Thanksgiving, we could each take one home with us after dinner. Love her! And miss her like crazy!
So, I'm embarrassed to say, I just bought and used frozen pie crusts because it just seemed too hard and it would never be as good as my Gramma's. Flash forward to my vegan and gluten free world ... 5 years ago there were no frozen crusts for me. What's a lazy vegan baking girl to do... figure it out for herself - yet again.
And actually it's much easier than I thought. It's all in the technique which is hundreds of years old. And to cover the V & GF part of it, our Karma Baker flour blend ensures it works perfectly. I must add that the invention of vegan butters like Miyoko's and Earth Balance, makes it's super easy too!
Here's our recipe. If you can make it the old fashioned way- use that know-how and apply it here with these ingredients. It's all in the technique anyway. And maybe the flour blend too ;)
Buy Our Organic Gluten Free flour here.
Happy pie holidays!
This is the perfect flaky pie crust we use at Karma Baker bakery. The tricks are in the techniques. Use cold ingredients. Chilling the dry ingredients and the even the mixing blades is a big benefit to keeping the fats and flour mixing exactly right!
1 1/4 cups Karma Baker Organic Gluten Free Flour ((or your own GF flour blend) -results will definitely vary tho)
6 TBL Organic Palm Shortening
1 1/2 TBL Organic Vegan Butter
1/4 tsp Sea salt
3-5 TBL Ice Water
Ice Water
Chop the vegan butter into small cubes and freeze about 20 minutes.Measure out palm shortening and also store in the freezer until ready to use. Measure out your dry ingredients. And prepare a glass of ice water to measure out of as needed.
Using a food processor, pulse the dry ingredients with the fats for 10 seconds at a time, until it resembles wet sand. Add the ice water 1 TBL at a time and pulse until the dough just comes together. Do not over mix. You may not need all of the water. It depends on the weather. Dryer days need more water. Humid days... less.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours. Roll out as you like. A little tapioca starch on the rolling pin is always helpful. Enjoy! Please leave feedback and comments with your results! In Good Karma, Celine
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