In my post "
10 Things I CAN Do" I mentioned that I make THE WORLD'S GREATEST PIE CRUST. I know this is true because The Hillbilly tells me so. He also tells anyone else who will listen. He will also tell you he wasn't a big fan of pie before he tasted my pie crust. It IS THE WORLD'S GREATEST PIE CRUST. It's my mama's recipe. It's light, it's flaky, it tastes good. So after I bragged about it, Lisa at
Grandma's Briefs said that I should share the recipe. So I will. Because I aim to please. I'm cool like that.
HOWEVER...this is not a recipe blog. Never was, never will be. Therefore, the recipe is at the mercy of my desire to write in a friendly, chatty kind of voice, and you, my faithful readers will need to pick the important recipe stuff out of the friendly, chatty stuff. I know you can do that because you're very smart. So here we go.
It's really a simple recipe. First figure out how many crusts you are making. The pie in the picture up there is a two-crust pie. Some pies, pumpkin or pecan for example, take only one crust. And then you have to know how many pies you're making and how many crusts each pie needs, and then do a bunch of math, and that tells you how many crusts you're making. I'll let you figure that out on your own.
So for each crust that you're going to make, you need 1 cup of flour. I've made as many as four crusts at a time. More than that seems unwieldy. So you put your flour in a big mixing bowl. Then you need some shortening.
This is the trickiest part of the recipe. You MUST use Crisco shortening. If you're not going to use Crisco shortening, then just put your flour back and quit reading this recipe. I won't have you using inferior shortening and then claiming that the recipe is no good and it's not really THE WORLD'S GREATEST PIE CRUST.
Now. You've got your flour in the bowl, you've gotten rid of that store brand shortening and have Crisco in front of you. For each cup of flour, add 1/2 cup of shortening. Then sprinkle in a little salt. Not much.
Now you're going to use your pastry cutter. If you don't have one, get one. If you don't know what one is, they look like this:
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You use the pastry cutter to cut the shortening into little bits while mixing it with the flour. Keep cutting in the shortening until it's about the size of little peas. Then stop! The worst thing you can do is over-handle the dough.
Now you need to add water. I've read all sorts of nonsense about the importance of using ice water. I've never used ice water. I use whatever comes out of the tap. For each crust that you're making, you need 1/4 cup of water. Add the water slowly and mix with the flour/shortening. As you mix the dough it should pull away from the sides of the bowl and start sticking together.
Handling the dough as little as possible, divide it into the correct number of balls for your crusts. Roll each ball into a roughly circular shape on a floured cutting board until it is big enough to fit into your pie dish. Carefully place the crust into the dish and trim the edges. For a two-crust pie, put the filling into the pie and then roll out and add the top crust. Repeat for each crust you're making.
Okay. For those who insist on having a "real" recipe, here you go.
For each pie crust you need:
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of Crisco shortening
1/4 cup of water
a little bit of salt
Try it out and please let me know how it works for you! Let me know if you have any questions too.
For my next post, I'll show you how to hula hoop! Won't that be exciting?
Linking up here:
that suggested making of a list, before you start dating, of 10 characteristics a partner must have. These are 10 non-negotiables that will help you recognize that someone is the person you can be compatible with the rest of your life. It didn't take me long to recognize that My Hillbilly had all 10 things on my list. Since then I've just found more and more to love about him.
