I've struggled with pie crust in the past. Now I've found at least one recipe/technique I really like. I've only tested the one batch so far, but I'm really pleased with the flakiness. The two secret ingredients are: vodka and lard.

I used Cook's Illustrated foolproof pie dough, which uses half water and half vodka to ensure a flaky but malleable and forgiving pastry. The vodka provides extra liquid but limits the amount of water in order to shorten the gluten bonds forming, which will give a more tender crust. I adjusted the recipe slightly and instead of shortening, I used lard I picked up from my local butcher, Cleaver & Co. Lard, like vegetable shortening is better for pastry crust because it has a lower water content than butter, which ensures a flakier crust. This recipe uses a butter/lard combo to get the best of both worlds--is it the end all be all best pastry crust recipe ever? Probably not, but it's worth trying. It's tasty and flaky. The biggest downside was despite freezing the crust before baking, neither attempt kept the shape of my pretty pie edge designs. So I'd suggest doing something pretty basic as far as finishing goes.

The pecan pie recipe is adapted from Southern Living. The original recipe didn't fill my 9-inch pie pan, so I made some quantity adjustments. If this makes too much for you, make sure to look over at their recipe. I also substituted Steen's Southern Made for the light corn syrup. This particular Steen's product is part molasses/part corn syrup, so you get some of that molassesy goodness. If you want to mix the two yourself, I'd recommend about an 80:20-ish ratio of corn syrup to molasses (almost a cup of corn syrup and about 2 tablespoons or so of regular molasses (not blackstrap). Also, I made this recipe twice so far. The first one (pictured in this gooey slice on the right/above) was just a bit under cooked and the middle didn't quite set perfectly, but it tasted delicious. The second was just a tad over cooked and set up well but didn't taste as nice, so just keep an eye out on your pie in the last 10 minutes or so and see how its doing. Again, is it the greatest pecan pie recipe of all time? Eh....it was really good but I want to try out some other recipes as well. That said, I'm still keeping this one in the memory bank for now too.