Teeny McMunn: My Recipe Box

Seriously, a pie crust.  Everyone has their favorite recipe, many handed down. In Home Ec, we were taught the basic 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup shortening, salt, water version. This one is similar, but has different portions, and is very pliable.

Let me tell you how I came to make it. My youngest son requests an apple pie for his birthday dessert. Making pies is my least favorite thing. I almost never make them. They're time-consuming and don't last long.

So I say to myself, I'll get those easy, readymade pie crusts. But Saturday, I didn't want to go to the store. I looked up this recipe. It has 5 stars with good reviews. I took my Crisco off the shelf and checked the pull date. It was 2 years past!! I thought it smelled a bit stale. I didn't want to take the chance of ruining the pie so I decided to go to the store to get a new can. This is so me!! I got home to start on the recipe, THEN figured out that I could have bought the readymade ones while I was there.  Too late now!

The crust was very easy to work with. Maybe the ice water is the trick.

What do you do with the leftover pie crust? My mom and Joe said his mom did the same, baked the extra crust putting cinnamon and sugar on it. It was a favorite childhood memory.

The apple pie was a standard recipe. If you would like it, let me know. I check with All-Recipes for most of mine, including this pie crust.

INGREDIENTS:

Makes one crust. Double for two.

½ c. vegetable shortening

1 ½ c. all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

½ c. cold water

DIRECTIONS:

Mix shortening, flour, and salt together with a fork or pastry blender until very crumbly. Add as much water as needed to hold together and mix lightly with a fork.

Roll gently on a floured pastry cloth to about an inch larger than the pie plate. Fold carefully in half, lift to pie plate, and unfold. Press into pan. For a single-crust pie, trim with a small knife to about ½ inch beyond rim. Fold up and pinch so the edge of the pie is raised from the rim.

For a two-crust pie, trim bottom crust to edge of rim, fill, and top with crust about ½ inch larger than rim. Tuck top crust under bottom along rim. Seal with floured fork.

MY NOTES:

One review said to add the ice water one tablespoon at a time, then toss with a fork. I probably did two at a time and used all the water, tossing it well. Then I used my hands to make a ball of dough, slightly kneading it to make sure it held together. I rolled it out on a bread board and, as mentioned, it was very pliable.

If you don't have a pastry blender, you will save a lot of work to pick one up.

Since it looked so good, I froze my son's pie and made another one for the house!

ENJOY! 