Gluten-Free Pie Pastry

I have been craving a good pie for a while now. I grew up with Shamrock Pies in East London and I simply relish the taste of flaky pie pastry.

I found a recipe online that seemed relatively easy and I adapted it to accommodate all the alternate flours that I love. This recipe will make 12 pies the size of your hand. The dough is also good to freeze so you can make in bulk and take out and bake whenever you feel like.

Confession: The pies that I made yesterday contain Rye flour because I ran out of some of the other flours. Please don’t use Rye because it is NOT gluten-free.

Ingredients

1 cup cold water

2 tbs vinegar (any is fine)

1/2 cup Coconut flour (I used Rye here)

1/2 cup Quinoa flour

1/2 cup Oat flour

1 cup Gluten-free flour blend

pinch of salt

1 tsp Xantham gum

200g cold butter

1 egg

Method

1. Mix the water and vinegar in a cup and put in the fridge.

2. Sift flours and the xantham gum

3. Cut the butter in tiny cubes and pinch it into the flour mixture. Don’t rub because you want to keep the mixture as cool as possible.

3. Add the cold liquid from the fridge, 2 tbsp at a time, and mix with a fork until the dough comes together. 12 tbsp of water is enough. There will be some left over but don’t be tempted to add more.

4. The dough will be slightly sticky. Don’t knead it. Shape into a rectangle and cling wrap it.

5. Freeze for an hour.

6. Dust a surface with a little bit of maizena/one of the flours that you’ve used and shape and fill your pies.

This dough bakes well with egg wash at 180 degrees for 30 minutes. I sprinkled whole millet on the pie but you can use sesame seeds/pumpkin seeds.