The household (of the Detroit free press)

Repeat this process three times, then line a pie-pan with a lower crust, brown it lightly in the oven before putting in the fruit or custard, then add the top crust and bake in a moderately quick oven. All crust will be more flaky if laid on ice a short time before using. Lard for pastry may be used as hard as it can be cut with a knife, and it will be better than if left stand to warm. It needs only to be cut through the flour, not rubbed. Pie crust without lard can be made by taking rich buttermilk, soda, and a little salt, and mixing just as soft as it can be mixed and hold together ; have plenty of flour on the molding board and rolling-pin ; then make and bake as other pies, or rather in a slow oven, and when the pie is taken from the oven do not cover it up. In this way a dyspeptic can indulge in the luxury of a pie. Pot-pie crusts with baking powder are made in this wise : Take one quart of flour, three teaspoonfuls of baking powder, a piece of butter as large as a hen's egg, well rubbed in the flour ; mix just hard enough to handle ; use either sweet milk or water to mix with ; then, twenty minutes before you take up your dinner, pull your dough in pieces about as large as two hen's eggs and put in your kettle ; cover and keep boiling briskly. Use buttermilk or sour milk for pot-pie crust when it can be procured. These are the proper proportions : One quart of flour, a little piece of butter rubbed in the flour, salt and a teaspoonful of saleratus or soda dissolved in enough sour milk to make a dough just hard enough to handle ; then, as in the other kind, pull in pieces and put in your pie. Allow twenty minutes to cook. Do not raise the cover of your kettle more than once while it is cooking. When making the crust for a pot-pie there is danger, as every cook knows, of the crust falling when it is cooked in the kettle with the meat or chicken. If instead of doing this you put the crust on a plate and steam it for three-quarters of an hour, it will not be heavy. Be sure to have plenty of water in the kettle, so that you will not have to take the steamer off in order to put more in. Make the crust just as you do baking powder biscuit. When the meat is cooked and the gravy made, drop the crust into the gravy and leave it there a minute or two. In warm weather, if the crust can not be used immediately after making, put in the ice-box until ready to use, and roll always with a well-floured rolling-pin. To prevent the juice from soaking into the under-crust, beat an egg well and with a soft cloth rub the crust before filling the pies. In the upper crust make air-holes, or the crust will break. These are best made with the point of the spoon or with a pastry-cutter, and may be drawn a little apart when placed over the pie. Use tin pie-plates, as the crust does not bake well in earthen ones, and do not fill with fruit until ready to place in the oven. When using juicy fruit, such as currants, gooseberries, sprinkle a little corn starch and sugar over the fruit after it is in the pie, and immediately put on the top crust and bake. Just before putting on the upper crust wet the rim of the lower, with water, and press the two crusts firmly together ; this will prevent the pie bursting.