I’ve never been able to make a good pie crust. You know, the flaky, tender kind of crust. The kind of crust that my friend, Mary, unerringly turns out. But I may have cracked the code.

The Big Guy wanted birthday apple pie instead of birthday cake this year. Since it was a special occasion, I decided to bypass my standard Pillsbury Pie Crust, and make yet another in a long series of attempts at a homemade crust.

I’m going to admit to some issues here. I don’t like to use bleached flour, and I don’t like to use lard or Crisco. These prejudices have probably caused my lack of success at making good crust in the past. I’m sure that if I read the Pillsbury label, I would find that their product contains much that I don’t like, so I’m not claiming to be reasonable, just factual.

I’m going to credit the success of this latest attempt to the flour that I used. The fact that Bob’s Red Mill Fine Pastry Flour is unbleached caught my eye at the outset, and their recommendation to use all butter instead of solid shortening in making the crust sealed the deal. King Arthur also makes a pastry flour, but I haven’t tried their product.

Making pie crust from scratch is nothing like unrolling Pillsbury dough. It was messy and time consuming, but the end result was so good that I will definitely make it again.