Fun Food Friday- Never Fail Pie Crust

Pies are one of my favorite things to make.  And one of the key components to an amazing pie is a homemade crust.  I used to hate making crust, they never turned out.  But then I took a pie baking class from the lady that ran our cafeteria at Providence and learned that making a crust is not that hard and is just so much better.  So here you go- Never Fail Pie Crust

Ingredients:  Flour, Shortening, Salt, Egg, Vinegar, Ice Water

 

My very cute assistant all ready to go :)

In a large bowl mix 3 cups all purpose flour...

1 teaspoon salt...

 And 1 1/4 cup shortening

Mix together with a pastry blender...

until the mixture is crumbly (do not over mix)

Here Micah is demonstrating how to get the dough out of your pastry blender :)

 

In a cup mix one egg...

 

5 Tablespoons of ice water...

and 1 Tablespoon of vinegar 

Beat together (don't beat too hard or the water will come spilling out of the cup) 

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the liquid to the center

Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients with a fork

Then just dig in with your hands to mix the dough until it is smooth

(don't handle the dough too much or it will be too tough)

 

This recipe makes 2 crusts so divide the down in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap.  Dough can be chilled in the refrigerate if it's going to be used in the next day or so, or it can be stored in the freezer until needed.  I love having dough in the freezer so that if I all of the sudden decide I want to make a pie, the crust is already made.  If you just place it on the counter for about an hour it should be ready to go. 

Now it's time to roll the crust out, my least favorite part because I am terrible at it.  So I found this awesome pie crust maker at Bed Bath and Beyond.  You just flour it, put the dough in the middle, zip it up...

And roll it into a perfect circle

The only problem is my glass pie pans are a little bit bigger than a pie tin, so I have to put it on the counter and roll it a little thinner, but still so worth the work.

To get it in the pan just fold it in half and transfer over to the pie pan...

 

and unfold it :)

To make it look pretty just roll the edges over then crimp it like this 

 

Now you're all ready to fill it with your favorite pie filling and bake according to the pie directions.

Or if you just need a baked pie crust:

You want to make sure you poke it all over the place with a fork so that when you bake it air bubbles don't come up all (you only have to do this when just baking a crust with no filling)

 

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes

 

And there you have it, yummy, easy pie crust!