Let's start with Thanksgiving

When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of pie. How original.

Mama always made two pies at Thanksgiving: a pumpkin pie for my Dad and me and a pecan pie for her. Mama grew up in Louisiana, next door to an orphanage. One of her favorite childhood memories was helping the orphans pick the pecans that fell from the trees surrounding the orphanage. She would help bag up the pecans so the orphanage could sell them to the neighbors at Thanksgiving. It was the 1930's version of selling Sally Foster gift wrap, I suppose, but closer to real work and certainly more in keeping with the spirit of the holiday.

As a result, Mama had a soulful love of pecans. So even though my Dad (a New Yorker) couldn't even pronounce the word pecan correctly (he said pea-can), even though he thought pumpkin pie was the best thing since baseball and even though neither he nor I would touch pecan pie, we always had one. Mama used the recipe on the back of the Dark Karo Syrup bottle...not the very same recipe on the back of the pale, creepy Light Karo Syrup bottle.

But it was the crust that ruled the day. This was a particularly sensitive issue because my Dad's mother was the best pie maker in America. Her crusts were always perfect. Mama, not so much. She was a great cook, mind you, just not much of a baker. She didn't even like to eat dessert. Unless, of course, it had lots of pecans.

For 11 months out of the year, just like Mama, I don't make pies. The filling is a snap. It's the crust that's the challenge. Regular old pie crust, made with hard winter wheat flour and shortening has always been hit or miss for me. I've also tried prepared crusts, frozen crusts, sticks of dried out dough in a box that you just added water to crusts, graham cracker crusts, pat-in-the pan crusts, nothing was sure-fire. Sometimes my pie crusts would be flaky, buttery rich and not too brown around the edges. Other times they stuck to the pan, or they were so tough you had to chisel them out with a hammer and a flat-head screw driver. Sometimes they were so heavy you could use them to prop open the front door. Some of my worst culinary moments have involved pie.

So this year, I bought some GF pie crusts from Whole Foods (not the store brand, oh no, I had to try a more expensive private brand). I had the good sense to try one of these rarefied discs before I actually got down to making the real Thanksgiving pies. Yikes. Paper towels would have been more tasty, communion wafers would have been more flaky.

So, I set off on a quest to find and test drive some GF pie crust recipes by searching the web. I knew the Gluten Free Pantry made a pretty decent pie crust mix, but I wanted to make something from scratch. The stars must have been aligned that night because the first recipe I tried turned out to be just about as good as anything I've ever made, even using a traditional wheat-based recipe.

Here's the recipe. Enjoy.


Gluten Free Pastry Crust for a double crust pie or two single crust pies

• 1 1/2 cups of gluten free flour mix (2 parts white rice flour, 2/3 of a part potato starch, 1/3 of a part tapioca flour)

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 stick frozen butter
• 1 tsp xantham gum
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 large egg beaten
• 2 large sheets of parchment paper or waxed paper

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

Grate the still-frozen butter into the dry ingredients using the large holes on your box grater. What? You don't have a box grater. We need to talk.

Then blend with a pastry cutter or two knives until the butter is well-distributed, but the mixture is still coarse.

Beat the egg in a small cup, add the vanilla, and then use your hands to mix the egg mixture into the dry ingredients. Work the dough just until it starts to form a ball. If it won't stick together, add a scant drizzle of water, and try again.

Note: I had to use a good bit of water, a drizzle at a time, to make it work.

Divide the dough into two balls, wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight. While the dough is chilling, mix up the filling(s).

Lightly flour a big sheet of parchment paper. Roll out the crust just as you would for a traditional pie crust recipe. Check periodically as you roll, making sure the dough isn't sticking to the paper. Add a bit more flour to the rolling pin and the parchment paper if necessary.

When the dough is the right size for your pie pan, roll it up half-way onto your rolling pin, then unroll it into the pie pan. Alternatively, you can invert the pie pan on top of the crust and flip the crust into the pan. If you're lucky it will invert perfectly, but if you get a tear, don’t worry. You can easily piece it back together with your hands.

For a pumpkin or pecan pie, proceed using your favorite recipe. The Dark Karo Syrup recipe for pecan pie or the Libby's solid pack pumpkin pie recipe for a pumpkin pie work just fine for me, just like they did for my mother.

If you are making a fruit pie instead of a pumpkin or pecan pie, egg wash the bottom, and add your fruit filling. Repeat the parchment rolling with the second half of the dough and fit it on top of the fruit filling, crimping to seal. Using a small, sharp knife, cut three or four small slits into the top crust, decorative or otherwise, to let the stem vent from the pie while it’s cooking.

Bake as you would for any pie, checking the crust rim after 15 minutes of baking. If the crust browns too quickly, cut a foil collar for the pie and add it now.