BASIC GRAIN FREE PIE CRUST
Fall has moved in for good. Summer was busy and so is fall, especially when you follow a diet that requires a lot of planning, grocery shopping, and cooking. I know a lot of people who follow the same diet that do their meal prep on weekends to keep the weekday cooking time to a minimum. I never really got into that. I do freeze leftovers, but I’m not really organized at preparing food in advance for a whole week. An advantage of being a stay-at-home mom is that you find some time to prepare meals from scratch on a daily basis.
As the holiday season approaches, it gets more tricky even for me since I want to make all these delicious goodies reserved for the festive time of the year on top of my usual cooking. Cooking and baking for holiday gatherings can be fun, but also stressful when you can’t find the time. To keep the stress to a minimum, I make extra large batches of homemade yoghurt so it’s readily available for breakfasts, snacks, dips, and dressings. I also prepare soups, stews, and pasta dishes in larger batches so we can enjoy them for two nights in a row. I gather our favorite holiday recipes ahead of time and go through them to make ingredient lists. I also stock up on all non-perishable food items like almond flour, spices, coconut flour, eggs, butter, cocoa powder, 100% chocolate chips, vanilla extract, almond milk, tomato paste, vegetable broth, lentil pasta, nuts, and nut butters in my pantry and fridge. I also stock up on paper towels, toilet paper, detergent, and cleaning supplies because you don’t want to run out of those on Christmas Eve. With all these supplies at hand, all I have to focus on is shopping for fresh produce, fish, and meat.
Voilà - everything is in the house for my Basic Grain Free Pie Crust and I can make it any night before I need it. It tastes great with all kinds of sweet pie fillings like apple, pumpkin, pecan or, coming up in my next blog post, my delicious pear and fig filling.
INGREDIENTS
4 tbsp cold butter
3 cups blanched almond flour
1 tbsp coconut flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp freshly grated lemon peel
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
2 tbsp honey
6 tbsp iced water
for the egg wash:
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp heavy whipping cream (with lactose intolerance I recommend fermented heavy whipping cream)
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven at 375°F / 190°C.
Add butter, almond flour, coconut flour, salt, lemon peel, vanilla seeds, honey, and egg to a large mixing bowl. Knead the ingredients into a crumbly dough, making sure the butter gets fully incorporated. Add the ice water and knead again until well combined. Form the dough into thick disk shape, wrap in plastic foil, and refrigerate for two hours or overnight.
Grease a 9” pie pan with butter. Roll out half of the dough (I like to roll it our in between two sheets of parchment paper to prevent it from sticking). Form a round shape that can easily overlap the pie dish. Using a rolling pinn, carefully move the dough into the pie dish while making sure the bottom and sides are evenly covered with dough.
Spoon the pie filling onto the dough.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the second half of the dough to a 1/8” thick round shape.
Three methods to cover the pie filling:
1. Cover the entire filling with dough, making sure to add a hole to vent the steam.
2. Cut out your favorite shapes with cookie cutters and decorate the surface of the pie, covering most of it.
3. Cut long strands of dough with a pastry wheel cutter and form a lattice pattern to cover the pie filling (You can see this in my Engadiner Walnusstorte recipe).
Mix the egg yolk with heavy whipping cream and, using a pastry brush, evenly brush the dough surface with the egg yolk mixture.
Bake at 375°F / 190°C for 25-30 minutes. Cover the pie loosely with aluminum foil for the last 10 minutes to prevent it from getting too dark. Remove the pie from the oven and let cool.
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My name is Ulrike. I created this website to share my dietary approach to natural healing and delicious sugar, grain, and lactose-free recipes. I found that, provided with the right nutrition, the body itself is one of the greatest healers.
Find out what I learned on my nine-year journey with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and get valuable information about natural healing
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