I found out my great-grandma's pie crust secret was actually a typo

I was copying out my great-grandma's apple pie recipe from her old church cookbook, the one from St. Paul's in Duluth. The crust part always said '1/2 cup lard and 1/2 cup butter, cut in with a fork until it looks like coarse crumbs.' I did it that way for a decade. Last week, I was looking at her original handwritten note stuck in the book. It clearly said '1/2 cup lard OR 1/2 cup butter.' The 'and' in the printed book was a mistake. I tried it with just butter last night and the crust was completely different, way more flaky and tender. It makes sense now, because she was poor during the Depression and would have used whatever fat she had, not both. Has anyone else had a family recipe change completely after spotting an old error like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

william32020d ago

Wow, that's wild! My buddy had something similar with his grandpa's chili recipe. For years it called for a whole cup of sugar, which always seemed crazy sweet. Turns out the faded card actually said "a spoon of sugar." One little word change and it went from a dessert to a totally decent dinner. Makes you wonder how many recipes we're all getting wrong, right?

jessel3519d ago

My great aunt's apple pie recipe called for "a pinch of salt" but her handwriting was so bad we read it as "a pint of salt." Ruined two pies before my mom called her to ask what the heck, @william320. We still laugh about it every Thanksgiving.