Which do you prefer when making a pie crust, butter or vegetable shortening?

I can’t seem to make pie crusts, for some reason they stick to my hands. But I have a niece who makes the best I have ever tasted and she always uses regular crisco. She says you use butter for the crumble on top if you are making a crumb pie, but you need crisco for the shell. I agree the butter flavored kind is disgusting to even look at or smell!

I use 14 tablespoons of butter and 1 T. of Crisco. Rich and flaky; I make it in the food processor.

Shortening makes a very good pie crust.

My mom always used only Crisco and made a great piecrust, but I also like the combo I use.

I use shortening. You can use butter-flavored shortening if you like the butter flavor; there are some naturally-flavored ones.

BUTTER ALWAYS. butter is real.

I use approximately 60% butter and 40% shortening. Not butter flavored This is through 25 years of trial and error. Butter gives you a rich flavor and shortening give you the flakiness that most people are after. If you want something that’s more like a tart shell – all butter, something closer to thin shortbread than pie crust – then make pate sucre’.

The other thing that will help with flakiness is to use very cold water, shortening and butter. Handle the dough as little as possible to avoid too much gluten development and to avoid warming the ingredients. Put the finished dough in the refrigerator for an hour to chill the dough. When you bake it, start at a high temperature – 425 is what I use – for the first ten minutes, then bring the temperature down to 350 or 375. The exception to this is for a custard type pie like pumpkin. That one I bake at whatever my recipe says.

Thanks everybody. Very very helpful. :)

I use 50/50 butter and olive oil and they always come out great. There is an awesome youtube video I follow exactly when making pie crusts – I will find it for you if I can.

@tragiclikebowie that does sound interesting.

@tragiclikebowie

Do you use the olive oil pastry for savory tarts or sweet ones? Do you use a strong-flavored oil or a mild one?

Butter!!!

Regular Crisco.

The frozen pie crusts by PET are pretty good, but I don’t think they have a top crust. The refrigerated Pillsbury are ok, but I find that the top crust turns out nice while the bottom gets kind of soggy.

I’m kind of scared to say I always use lard don’t bash me The Tenderflake recipe on the box. I love how it tastes and I love how you can almost play with the dough to fix rips, etc. Too easy.

@faye Don’t be afraid. Animal fat is animal fat, butter or lard in my opinion. Just if there are vegetarians who eat dairy and eggs, they won’t be able to eat your pie. In fact if I remember correctly butter has much more saturated fat and cholesterol than lard, but you might want to double check me if you are interested. I once tried switching to butter instead of margarine and my cholesterol went up. “Natural” does not seem to be better for me. Although of course veggie oil is better than the hydrogenated I guess.

@JLeslie I’ve been watching with interest all the Thanksgiving recipes on here. Ours is over but I’m thinking of sweet potato pie and pecan pie for xmas. We’re looking for new things this year.

@faye sometimes i use bacon fat. please dont judge me. it comes out really well!

@deni Bacon fat is lard, just tastier. I never thought of trying it for meat pies- thanks.

@deni – hehehe, it’s funny isn’t it, you feel like a criminal if you use animal fat!!! My grandparents lived well into their 80’s and they ate animals fats every day of their lives. Of course they did hard manual labor and worked it off as fast as they ate it! Guess that helps, and their intake was proportionate to their output too.

Crisco shortening makes the best crusts.

I only ever have to make this choice when greasing pans, but when I do grease a pan, I’ll be more likely to use butter. I have butter. I don’t have vegetable shortening.
@faye It’s also good for cooking eggs, when it’s hot. Just dump the suckers in and whammo, baconey eggs not a minute later.