Basic Pie Crust - single or deep dish
Roll out dough together. Eat pie together.
Nothing beats homemade pie crust.
By happy chance, it turned out to be my mom’s birthday when Rebel and I set out to make our pies. We lit a candle in her memory, in her favorite color of orange. There’s so much in common across our three generations – favorite color, love of making pie. And, sadly, lactose intolerance.
Mom’s favorite pies were pumpkin and lemon meringue, which we’ve updated and posted here on the blog with lactose free and dairy free versions.
I have so many memories of watching my mom roll out pie crust. Part of learning to do it myself was through this fascinated observation.
You could probably make a meditative practice out of rolling out pie dough. I remind myself of this every year when the day before Thanksgiving hits and my list exceeds available time and energy.
But it’s easy for me to step back into memories of Mom rolling the dough, starting at the center and shaping it in each direction. The thump of the rolling pin hitting the table with just a slight pressure, letting the rolling pin do most of the work.
When they were young, Rebel and Elyse helped the night before Thanksgiving. They’d measure and mix the pumpkin filling while I made the pie crust. It was a great team process. A few weeks later at Christmas, they’d take turns rolling out cookie dough, but for Thanksgiving I made the pie crust.
It was fun on this blog Friday making pie together with no holiday dinner pressure. And especially memorable, it turned out, because this was Rebel’s first attempt at making pie crust.
Rebel here - if I may jump in for a moment. I had always ended up being in charge of making pie filling since my mom loves making pie crust. After several decades I was officially invited into making pie dough on this non-holiday occasion. Glad to now be part of the club.
Rebel, too, had learned by years of observing. Her results were fantastic – a gorgeous, flaky crust.
Taste Test Kitchen: a note about different brands of shortening
I made three pumpkin pies (not counting Rebel’s) over the holidays. We were trying different lactose free and dairy free milks for the pumpkin filling.
In the process, I used Crisco brand shortening and then an organic brand of shortening on the pies. There was some difference in the results, so I checked the ingredients of each of the brands I’d purchased. There are many more ingredients in Crisco shortening, which may be what keeps the crust from getting soggy with the filling. The organic brand did ok, but when I use it in the future, I’ll be sure to par bake the crust (see recipe card) so it holds up.
Despite the usual mess of the process, our pie crusts turned out beautifully on this day. Almost like we had a little help looking over our shoulder. Happy pie making to you!
~ Lee
Basic Pie Crust - single or deep dish
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon shortening, chilled
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water
- 9 1/2 tablespoons shortening, chilled
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 to 4 1/2 tablespoons ice water
Instructions
- Mix flour and salt in a medium-sized bowl.
- With a pastry cutter, cut the chilled shortening into the flour until it's the size of small peas. You could optionally use a fork and knife.
- Sprinkle ice water 1 tablespoon at a time over the mixture and mix in with a fork. Continue to add water until the dough comes together. If the dough seems extra dry, add an another tablespoon of water.
- Bring the dough into a ball and place on well floured wax paper. Shape the dough into a disk about 2" thick.
- Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough to fit a 9" pie pan.
- Place dough in pie pan. Flute or crimp edges.
- Fill and bake according to pie recipe.
- To par bake (aka 'blind bake'), pierce the bottom and sides a few times with a fork. Place a square of foil or sheet of parchment paper that is slightly larger than the pie plate over the dough. Fill halfway with pie weights or dry beans. Bake at 425° for 15 minutes until slightly brown. Remove pie weights, add filling and continue to bake at specified temperature.
- To bake completely before adding a no-bake filling, follow directions for par bake. Then remove foil or parchment and weights, reduce heat to 375° and bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
Notes:
Put about 1/2 a cup of water in a small bowl and add a little ice. From there, it's easy to measure each tablespoon and add to the flour mixture and then dip your fingers if you need to patch the dough as you shape it.
To see whether you've rolled the dough out enough, flip the pie plate upside down and hold it over the dough. It should reach 2-3" beyond each edge of the plate.
To transfer dough to pie plate, gently roll up the dough around the rolling pin and unroll over pie pan. Or, fold in half and half again. Place in one quarter of the pan. Unfold.
A word about shortening. When using Crisco brand, you may not need to par bake. With organic or other brands, without additives, par baking is recommended. This helps keep the bottom crust from getting soggy.
