Hot Water Pastry Crust: Lard or Vegetable Shortening or Butter?

November 6, 2022 7:45 AM

I am going to try making a raised meat pie for our Friendsgiving this year, and it will be my first time making hot water crust. I have questions.

I have found a recipe from a source I generally trust for hot water pastry with vegetable shortening but Paul Hollywood's recipe calls for butter and more broadly I've heard of this being done with lard. This is the filling I want to make. My main goal is that the whole thing not collapse on me. Has any one made hot water crust and can you comment on the durability and taste of these approaches? What's best?

posted by Medieval Maven to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

Lard and solid vegetable shortening should work in pretty much exactly the same way as each other. I would be suspicious of using butter even though it's in the Paul Hollywood recipe, as nearly every source uses lard/shortening and I believe lard is the fat originally used. Butter is probably a bit more likely to collapse than lard/shortening.
posted by plonkee at 8:25 AM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Butter might make the best tasting crust, but I agree it is not as strong as vegetable shortening or lard. Personally I would go with vegetable shortening as I think lard crusts are not common in the US.
posted by muddgirl at 9:01 AM on November 6, 2022

I had good luck with a half butter, half veg shortening hot water crust, but I can’t find the recipe (had a rage-cull of my wheat flour recipes after going gluten-free). I thought it was maybe from the guardian originally (ha), maybe a Ruby Tandoh one—but when i search her specifically I only see all-butter crusts. Sorry this isn’t very helpful. But I did want to say the half/half worked fine for me, structurally and tastewise.
posted by pepper bird at 9:12 AM on November 6, 2022

You can totally get lard. If not at your regular grocery, certainly at a Mexican grocery.

And butter will taste better than shortening, but as anyone who has watched the Great British Bake Off knows, if you don't do the butter just right, it can seep out and ruin your pastry. As you are making a meat pie, lard shouldn't be a problem. Ms. Windo, the baker in the family is vegetarian, so I have no familiarity with lard crusts.

So I too, would go with the vegetable shortening.
posted by Windopaene at 9:14 AM on November 6, 2022

Lard really does produce great results, but shortening works nearly as well and has the added benefit of... not being lard.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:48 AM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've done raised pies with lard several times (because I was cooking from Lobscouse and Spotted Dog). The only times I had problems were when my kitchen at Christmas was in the 80s due to living in Southern California/climate change, on which occasion I had to keep swapping the pie crust into the refrigerator to let it firm up while I got it properly raised. Otherwise, it worked great.
posted by LadyOscar at 9:51 AM on November 6, 2022

I loathe vegetable shortening and can tell when it’s being used. Pretty isn’t as important as palatability.
posted by waving at 10:35 AM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

By coincidence I'm planning to make hot water crust scotch pies tomorrow, first time ever of making this pastry, and the recipe I've found uses lard and butter. The guy cooking sounds exactly like I would expect someone who knows this sort of plain (and yummy) English cooking to sound, and also as if he has been doing it for years. Yes I know they're called scotch pies. If it was a Scottish recipe they would just be called pies, surely.

Solid, stolid, simple cooking just like what my mothers family used to do, I trust this bloke because of his voice, hopefully he knows his stuff, I'll find out tomorrow.
posted by glasseyes at 1:34 PM on November 6, 2022

I made raised pies for the first time last year for Thanksgiving! They were DELICIOUS, though I say so myself.

I used lard. You’re already cooking meat, lard goes with it very well, it works structurally, all the traditions are tuned for it, and — your nym!!
posted by clew at 7:53 PM on November 6, 2022

Response by poster: As an update:

I used the recipe linked in my post for the pie but we brined and roasted the turkey ahead (I didn't trust that it would be cooked through). So we layered herbed pork, cooked turkey, cranberries, cooked turkey, and herbed pork. The crust was done with shortening according to The Spruce Eats recipe (also linked in my post) and we needed two batches (with some left over afterwards).

We used a springform pan and it turned out great!
posted by Medieval Maven at 5:37 PM on December 6, 2022 [2 favorites]