Pie Crust - No Wheat Involved!

When people find out that I've decided to try going wheat-free in my family's diet, they are shocked not realizing that it is relatively easy to incorporate into your lifestyle and can be done gradually. If you like to work in the kitchen, it is a new level of challenge and actually wakes up your creativity as you reinvent favorite recipes. People also forget that it is only wheat you are omitting and that butter, sugar (depending on your personal diet needs), and most everything else is still in place. It can also stretch your grocery money a bit further as you will no longer want to purchase boxed cookies, cake mixes, and prepackaged fast food items.

As I said, however, my suggestion is you read about making this change, search the Internet and browse the recipes, and ponder how and if you can make a change like this. My free time on the computer, yesterday, was Googling my favorite cookie/bread recipes but prefacing the search line with 'gluten-free'. I came up with a substitute on every search!

Over the weekend, I made a lemon custard pie to treat my family. I found a recipe that used cornstarch for the thickener and my real change was the pie crust. Wanted to share it with you as it smelled amazing while it was baking and tasted like extra-good graham cracker crumb crust.

Gluten-Free Nut Crumb Crust
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup ground golden flax seed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick butter, melted and slightly cooled

Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix well. Press the crust into a pie pan (8"-9" size).

If you need a prebaked pie crust, bake for 15 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven until crust is set and golden. Fill with your favorite custard or non-baked filling.

If you want to bake a filling in the crust, prebake for approximately 10 minutes, cool a bit, add your filling and bake according to your recipe.

Basic Pie Crust Reminder

This is my husband's favorite pie crust. He likes is especially with pumpkin pie as it crisps up nicely and goes well with the pumpkin custard filling. I like it because it is easy to do and always turns out well.

All crusts need a maximum of attention and a minimum of handling. Knowledge of a basic pie crust will open up many recipe ideas for you.

Easy Oil Pie Pastry
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cold milk
½ cup vegetable oil

Combine flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Make a small well in the middle and pour in milk and oil. Stir lightly with a fork until well-mixed. If the pastry is too wet, add minute amounts of flour. If it is a dry day, you may have to add dabs of milk and oil - heavier on the oil than the milk. You can chill the dough at this point for later or go ahead and line a pie pan. This recipe makes one double crust or two single pie crusts.