For the Love of Lois

This past weekend I went with friends to Detering Orchard. They’ve got all the major fruits available for U-Pick: apples, peaches, pears, and blueberries. It’s been hot in Eugene, so cranking up the oven was a bad idea, but I couldn’t resist making a pie. 

For the Love of Lois

Every baker has their fall-back pie crust recipe. I’m including mine here. It’s from “For the Love of Lois,” a recipe book from the former cook of  a local retreat center (local=northwest ohio). My great-grandma passed this book on to my mom. I don’t know much about the author; an internet search just turned up this old photo from my hometown newspaper.

Never-fail pie crust 

The recipe is my fall-back because it’s easy to mix up and handle and it freezes well. I’ve had good results replacing half of the shortening with butter…you get the flakiness of shortening with the better taste of butter. Don’t attempt to replace the fats with margarine or weird shortening substitutes though. I was talked into it once (not good).

Cutting in the butter

I love crumb top pies. For one pie’s worth of crumb mixture, combine 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 cup oats, and 1 teaspoon salt. Cut in one stick (half cup) softened, not melted, butter.

Roll out

My mom rolls out her crust using a floured countertop and rolling pin. She’s mastered the art, but I never seemed to get it right. The rolling pin stuck to the crust, the crust stuck to the counter, flour got EVERYwhere. Now I roll my crusts out between sheets of saran wrap. You’re not supposed to handle pie dough very much (preserves the flakiness) so this allows for minimal man-handling.