Pastry recipe never fails

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2025 (242 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Every December, when I move boxes of Christmas decorations from the garden shed into the house, I’m reminded to wear my late mother’s special Christmas apron.

Betty’s red Santa apron is only deployed for seasonal use, since sporting a Christmas apron in July would be cause for concern.

Now is the time of year to make a few family favourites. Whenever I make tourtière, a French-Canadian meat pie, the crust must be made from scratch. For that purpose, I consult Mum’s Never Fail Pastry recipe. That family recipe is hand-scrawled in the front of a vegetarian cookbook I bought in Toronto in the 1980s.

Betty inscribed my cookbook before she and my father, John, moved back to Manitoba from Toronto in 1990. Mum, a typical Anglo-Saxon, was always practical and undemonstrative so I treasure the “Love You. – Mum” tagged on to the end of the recipe.

Mum’s handwriting is almost identical to her mother’s familiar scrawl. Bessie Brough loved to bake, so I’m sure the Never Fail Pastry Recipe originated from Bessie’s tiny kitchen in St. Vital.

Butter tarts, lemon meringue pie, chocolate birthday cakes and date squares all emerged with the productivity of a commercial bakery. Dad loved his mother-in-law’s date squares. Whenever a family crisis arose, Bessie would arrive with her flat Tupperware container filled up with date squares. The squares were so heavy you could deploy them as door-stoppers, my father joked.

Baking was Bessie’s passion. During the week, she cleaned floors and emptied wastebaskets at Glenlawn Collegiate for $4 per hour. I found Bessie’s old paystubs saved in my late mother’s cedar cabinet.

What better way to celebrate the season than to don the family Santa apron and make some pastry? I’ll use my late mother-in-law’s wooden rolling pins with the green handles to roll out the pastry recipe. When the turkey goes in the oven on Christmas Day, it’ll be cooked in Irene’s classic metal turkey roaster, which we also inherited.

Why do these annual rituals matter so much? In turbulent times, rituals provide comfort and routine. Still no CUSMA trade talks scheduled? It’s all going to be OK since I’m making the same South Asian cranberry chutney recipe again this year.

What I take most from my hardy Manitoba ancestors is their ability to cope in hard times. My late mother was tough-minded but fair. Years of dutifully raising two children and tending to my recalcitrant father challenged her sanity and tested her patience. Yet mum never wavered.

It didn’t matter how tired Betty was from typing legal briefs at work; once she arrived home, she’d strap on the Santa apron and get down to baking. Let’s not romanticize this season. For many women, it’s a sprint to exhaustion.

“Patty, have you seen my Christmas card list?” Addle-minded with fatigue, mum would have put her list down somewhere and a state of panic ensued. That list was her link back to every friend in every city we had ever lived.

It became my job to locate the list, put on the kettle and make her sit down for a cup of Earl Grey tea with skim milk and one-half packet of Sweet’N Low. As my parent’s aged-out at their Winnipeg Beach retirement perch, it fell to me during a holiday visit to cook the turkey in mum’s compact condo kitchen.

The crowded kitchen island was home to the remote station for Mum’s medical alert alarm. She hated the ugly grey necklace and kept it in a drawer. The only time the alarm sounded was when I accidentally unplugged the station while chopping onions for my cranberry chutney. I was sporting the Santa apron when an anxious operator called to ask about mum’s state of health.

Every Christmas, as promised, my family’s Never Fail Pastry recipe delivers. It’s only fitting that I share it with Free Press readers.

NEVER FAIL PASTRY

• 1 pound of lard
• 5 cups of pastry flour
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tablespoon of vinegar mixed with one egg. Fill the rest of one cup with cold water.

Soften lard and mix the flour in thoroughly with a pastry knife.

Add water, egg and the vinegar mixture gradually.

Knead with both hands into a smooth ball.

Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes before using. Also freezes well.

Happy Holidays everyone. It’s the ideal season to celebrate the importance of continuity, tradition and stability.

Now it’s time for me to strap on mum’s Santa apron and get baking.

Independent journalist Patricia Dawn Robertson writes and bakes in rural Saskatchewan. Please send her feedback at PatriciaDawnRobertson.com