(This recipe is from Mother Earth News and uses lard, just like Lorelei’s.)
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ cups lard, cold and coarsely chopped
1 egg
5½ tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vinegar
Instructions:
In large bowl, combine flour and salt. Using pastry blender or fork, cut in lard until the mixture is very fine. Set aside. In separate bowl, beat together egg, water, and vinegar.
Make small well in flour mixture and add liquid. Mix just until dough comes together in a ball. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces and flatten into disks. Wrap individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling.
To make double-crust pie with a solid top crust, roll out 2 disks of dough about 1-inch larger than pie plate. Fit one crust into bottom of pie plate. Fill pie with desired filling. Slightly moisten edge of bottom crust. Take second crust, fold it in half, gently place it over pie filling and unfold, centering it on pie plate. Press the edges into bottom crust to seal (you may need to moisten bottom edge with a bit of water). Trim excess dough to leave an overhang of about ¾ inch. Crimp or flute edges (handle of wooden spoon is great tool for this). To allow steam to escape, gently prick top crust with fork several times or slash vents into crust with sharp knife.
For fancy look, use a cookie cutter to cut out two or three small shapes from the crust top before you place it on the pie. Leaves, hearts, stars, etc., are good. You can place the cutout pieces on the crust for a 3-D effect.
Makes 4 single or 2 9-inch double crusts (enough for two double-crust pies or four single-crust pies).