Whole Wheat Pie Crust ~ Recipe

A couple of days ago I had mentioned that I had a new recipe that I wanted to try for a whole wheat and oatmeal pie crust and I don't know why I hadn't tried it sooner!! It's fantastic.

I was worried how we would like it being so used to the traditional flaky pie crusts that we're all so accustomed to eating but this has a deliciously crunchy crust and sort of reminds me of the crumb topping on an apple crumble. YUM!

You will need:

• 2 cups of soft wheat berries ground as fine as possible or 1 3/4 cups of store bought whole wheat flour
  
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 tablespoons sucanat or brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup of water

Set your grain mill to the finest setting and grind your soft wheat berries. You are going to want to use 1 3/4 cups of the freshly milled flour or if you don't have a mill you can use 1 3/4 cups of regular whole wheat flour :)

Mix your flour, oats, and sugar together and add in your oil mixing well. Next you just want to add enough water to make the dough stick together so that you can form a nice ball with it. I used approximately 1/4 cup of water but you may need a little more. To be on the safe side just add your water in very small increments so you don't make it to wet.

With your hands knead your dough two or three times to stick it all together and then divide it into two equal pieces for the top and bottom crust on your pie. Using your whole wheat flour give your counter a liberal dusting and pat one ball into a circular disk and then roll out with a floured rolling pin checking as you go to make sure it isn't sticking to your counter. If it starts to stick add a little more flour underneath or on top if needed. The first disk will be your pie bottom and then repeat with the other half of your dough to make your pie top :)

Because of the oats in the dough it tends to want to crumble a bit when you lift it into your pie plate so a good trick to help move it in one piece is to roll it up on your rolling pin so that it is wrapped around your pin and then lift it over your pie plate and unroll it again over your pie plate so that it falls into place :)

Let me know how you like it if you try it out! I'm a total convert now and I don't think that I will ever make a white flour pastry dough again *grin*.

Enjoy!
~ Rosina