Claire,
I just read this tip about adding the extra eggs, and heating the filling first. I'm happy I read them before tomorrow! Thanks!
Cara

Just in time for Thanksgiving. GF, Dairy free, soy free, corn free, refined sugar free.

For 1 crust. Double for two.
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup sweet rice flour; can sub with regular rice flour or part rice flour, part potato starch
1/4 tapioca starch
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup cold palm oil shortening (Spectrum vegetable shortening brand)
1/4 to 1/8 cup cold ghee (Technically, this does not have any of the milk solids, so it's dairy free. If you are sensitive to it, just substitute with vegetable shortening)
1 egg
1/4 tsp xanthum gum, optional
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, or water, optional
1 1/2 tsp date sugar for sweet pies; omit for savory pies
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cinnamon for sweet pies; omit for savory pies

The easy way to make this is to put everything in a food processor (pastry blade optional; I didn't see that it helped) and mix until you get a ball of dough.

Directions to mix by hand: Mix the flours, tapioca, sugar, and salt together. Cut the shortening and ghee into chunks, and using your fingertips, work them into the dry ingredients to form a coarse meal. Make a well. Break the egg into the well and add the vinegar or lemon juice. Use a fork to stir from the center, working the flour into the egg to form a soft dough.

I think the best way to put this in the pie pan is to press it in. Grease your pie pan first by either lightly spraying oil in it or using the vegetable shortening or ghee. Make a disk out of the dough, and press it in place with your fingers.

If you want to roll it out, make disk out of the dough and chill in the refrigerator before you do so. Roll out between two sheets of wax paper. After you roll it out, remove one of the sheets of wax paper, put your pie pan upside down on the crust, then flip everything over. Remove the second piece of wax paper and gently press the crust into the pan. If it cracks anywhere, you can easily fix it by pressing the broken ends together. Also, if its really soft, you might have to add a little more flour or use less ghee at first, and add more as you need it. Rolling out is best if you are making two crust pies, like apple pie.

For single pie crusts, pre-cook at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

Variations: If you can have dairy or soy, use 1/3 cup of cream cheese (for dairy free, used Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese) instead of the egg. Also, substitute 1/3 to 1/2 a cup of butter (1 stick) for the vegetable shortening and ghee (for dairy free with soy, use 1/2 cup Earth Balance buttery spread).

Notes: One of the recipes I used to create this recipe called for 1 Tbsp of vinegar. I can't really see what the vinegar does for the recipe, so I left it out this time.

Credits:
1. Debbie Sarfati of Whole Nourishment. I took her baking class and modified her recipe to make it soy free.
2. Rebecca Reilly's Gluten-Free Baking. I didn't like her GF flour mix, as I thought it had too much brown rice flour, so I used Debbie's mix. I did get some ideas of stuff to add in the crust that Debbie didn't have and used some of Rebecca's methodology.

If anyone finds any better variations, please let me know!

Claire

Claire, I'm going to experiment with your pie crust recipe! I have a question though. Do you pre-cook the empty pie shell for 10 minutes, then add the pie filling and cook again? Thanks!

Exactly. The reason that you pre-cook the pie shell is that GF crusts tend to get soggier than the wheat versions if you don't pre-cook them ahead of time.

If you are doing a two crust pie with a crust on top of the filling, then you don't pre-cook the bottom pie shell. Now, this may seem obvious, but it wasn't to me. It does still work if you pre-cook the bottom shell, but the top crust doesn't form a seal as well. When you bake, say, an apple pie, you can start the pie on the bottom rack position for 10-15 minutes to really get the bottom of the crust cooked, then move the pie to the middle rack position to finish baking.

Jamie, let us know how your pie turned out!

Claire

That looks so good!!! And, I *think* I can actually eat it! (nothing Corn-y)

Now...to find some Sweet Rice flour thats corn free again...

Sorry I got that name wrong! It is Gorilla Munch! (does contain corn)

We visited my son yesterday... he likes to cook, which is great for me!

Anyway, here is a cute anecdote... he lives in a complex with a lot of driveways, to get in..some apartments, and some "townhouses", which he is the latter. We were driving thru this maze of parking islands, and there was dumpster on the corner with a box of Gorilla Munch peeking out...It was like a beacon..."turn here"... that was his building! LOL

He made the pie crust for the pumpkin pie with ground up Gorilla Munch..and it was very good. Better than the Puffin one of last year.

I am becoming very impressed with his skills...he has far surpassed ME! He also made whipped cream from scratch and egg nog. The eggnog was terrific..Now I can't eat for the rest of the week to make up for it!

I hope everyone else had a good time yesterday too!

LOL! I had some problems. One thing I learned is that grinding rice in my juicer does NOT produce a fine flour! My pie crust was crunchy!! And of course, I subbed for the egg. I need to work on my variation some more. My teff pie crust was not terribly successful either - my 7yo suggested making pumpkin pie without a crust next time!

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

If you want to get fine GF flours, Bob's Red Mill Flours are great. Not only are they finely ground, they use an ELISA gluten assey test to make sure they are not contaminated.

My apple pie turned out great. While it was baking, I was comparing my GF, DF recipe with a regular one. Mine had instructions for baking at 350 and the gluten ones had instructions for baking at 425. Worried that my apples weren't cooking, I turned up the heat to 425. The crust really started to fry at this heat, so I turned it back down after 10 minutes. By then, the crust had started to crack, and I worried that the pie was going to be a crumbly disaster. After it cooled, it turned out fine. Everyone liked the pie anyways. My only complaint was that the top crust was too dry, but I seem to have this dryness problem with GF baking anyways. The bottom crust was fine because it soaked up the juices from the pie filling. I'll have to post my apple pie recipe as it is yummy and doesn't use any refined sugars.

What I learned is that you can't cook GF, DF crusts at that high a temperature. Slow and steady seems to be the key.

Claire

You can also use regular white rice flour for the sweet rice flour. Don't know if that helps you find some that is corn free.

Claire

I had a major disaster with my cornbread. It was a big recipe and called for 2 Tbs. of baking soda and I used Baking powder instead (didn't read it correctly). Anyway, it had a horrible metallic taste to it. Bleach!

My other mini-disaster was the chocolate mousse got too hard, couldn't stir it. So I couldn't make mousse cake out of it. So instead I got out a scoop and made frozen mousse balls. They tasted great! But they're going in the trash today because I really don't need to eat any more dairy products or sugar.