Friday, November 17, 2006

Gluten-Free Pie Crust

Mix together:
1 1/4 cups quinoa flour or other gluten-free flour
1 Tablespoon tapioca starch/flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 Tbs brown sugar (I use C & H; it's pure cane sugar and corn-free) or other sweetener (you probably won't need as much if any sweetener if another flour is substituted; quinoa flour needs the sugar to cut the bitterness)

Cut in until the lumps are about the size of sunflower seeds:
1/2 cup shortening (I use non-hydrogenated 100% pressed palm kernel oil vegetable shortening by Spectrum, you can use coconut oil, butter or lard.)

Add, one tablespoon at a time, until moist enough to work with:
5-7 Tablespoons ice water (5 1/2 tablespoons would have been about perfect for my crust)

Pat or roll out between two layers of plastic wrap or waxed paper. If you'll be baking the pie in the crust, bake the crust by itself for 5-10 minutes or just until the bottom is starting to get firm before adding the filling. That will keep the crust from getting soggy. You may need to put foil around the edge of the pie to keep it from getting too brown during baking.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this recipe! It was so nice to have a crust to eat pie with for Thanksgiving this year! Since I don't care for quinoa flour (and don't have any right now), I used 3/4 cup from a blend I have pre-blended for a bread recipe I use: it has 1 part Garfava Bean Flour, 1 part Tapioca Flour and one part Arrowroot (from Gluten-free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy--well, it's suppoed to be 1 part corn starch, but I can't do corn), 1/4 cup brown rice flour and 1/4 cup white rice flour. I used 2 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar. I started out with 4 Tbsp of water and this was too much...I should have added a little flour, or at least dusted my waxed paper with it, but since I didn't it was very gummy...I think the bean flour makes it like this (?). So, if you try this blend, start with 2-3 Tbsp of water and go from there. I look forward to trying this again the next time I make a pie and think it will come out even better. It was very tasty and even my parents and husband enjoyed it! Thanks again :)

purple_kangaroo said...

Rowe, I'm so glad it worked for you. Thanks for sharing your feedback.