GranNini's Simple Pie Crust

A good pie crust is essential for any yummy pie.  Pie crusts can be tricky, but with a few simple suggestions, you can make a pie crust without too much hassle!

GranNini's Pie Crust

1/2 cup (8 Tablespoons) of Crisco

3/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/4 cups flour

1/3 cup ice water

Directions:

In a large bowl, use a pastry knife to cut the Crisco with the salt and flour until the entire bowl resembles crumbs.  Slowly (!) and just a little at a time, drizzle in the ice water until the crumbs just stick together.  Once you have a lovely ball of dough, let the ball rest for 15 minutes.  This would be a great time for you to make the tasty innards for your pie!

  Next:  Lightly flour a large, clean surface area.  Plunk your ball o'dough in the center of your floured surface.  Lightly flour your rolling pin.  Then roll out your dough so that it's ever so slightly larger than your pie plate.  

Next:  Flip your pie crust in half, settle your pie plate onto your surface area right next to the pie crust, and then flip the pie crust back onto your pie plate.  I never mastered the art of rolling the pie crust up and onto my rolling pin, so I just flip it up in half, and then plunk it back down onto the pie plate.  Works for me.

Trim your edges, leaving about an inch around the outer edge of your pie plate.  Gently tuck the edge of the pie crust under the pie plate, leaving a little rim of pie crust around the edge.  Then use your fingers to make pretty edging, and voila!  You're done!

If you want to decorate the top of your pie, gently press together the remaining dough into a ball, roll out, and then cut into fun shapes. Use a dab of water, or a wee bit of egg wash, to press the decorations onto the top of your crust.

If you don't want to bother with decorating the top of your pie, because you're just going to smother it in whipped cream, then by all means, try making snickerdoodles out of your remaining pie crusts.  Mmmm. Snickerdoodles.

Helpful Hints:

*I use Crisco cubes.  They're called Crisco Baking Sticks, but essentially look like butter or margarine cubes, wrapped in tin foil and put into plastic tubs.  I used to use Crisco in a tub, but it gets my hands all greasy.  Blech.  I've also used butter, oil, margarine, and a combination of all three.  Crisco, I've found, is much less persnickety than the rest. So if you're just starting out, and need a much less fussy crust, go for the Crisco.  If you're feeling up to the challenge,  feel free to use butter (chilled and then cut into wee pieces) instead of Crisco.  I do not recommend oil or margarine because for me, they just don't turn into good crusts.

* Do not over-water, but don't hesitate to add as much water as it takes to get your crumbs to stick together.  Too little water makes your dough crumby, making it a challenge to roll out.  Too much, and your dough can end up gummy. 

* Make sure that your rolling pin is gently floured.  If your dough is a little sticky, and some of the pie crust ends up sticking to your rolling pin, simply add a little flour, scrape down the sides of your rolling pin with your fingers, and add a wee bit more flour.

Pictures:

For those of you who prefer pictures to go along with your recipes, here are you go!!

Dry ingredients look like crumbs

Add just enough water.  Too much will make dough sticky & gummy.  Not enough will make it hard to stick together and roll out.  You can ALWAYS add MORE water.  So drizzle it in just a wee bit a time.

Don't forget to flour your rolling pin.

A lovely perfect ball o'dough.  Let it sit for 15 minutes before rolling it out.

After I roll out this far, I usually flip it 90 degrees and roll out the other way.

Done rolling!

Flip the dough up onto itself and tuck your pie plate right up next to the dough.

Lift up the middle / seam of the dough to the edge of your pie plate
and flip the other half of your crust over.

Nicely done!  Now trim up your edges so that they're about 1/2 as long as they are in this pic.

Gently tuck under the edge of the dough.

(The left part of this pic shows the tucked under part, the right half shows the untucked part.)

Tuck, tuck, tuck.

Make a pretty design around the edge by using two fingers to pull in, while your other hand pulls out.

1/2 way there.

All done!!

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