Pie Crust

Doesn’t this pie look delicious?

Now, if there’s one thing I can do well, it’s making pie.   Here’s a tutorial for those who’d like to learn how to do so.    It’s easy and cheap to do- not that difficult and doesn’t take that long.

#1: When making pie crust you will get very messy hands so you need to have out everything you need to make the pie crust.

You need:  pie plates, a large mixing bowl, 1 cup measuring cup, 1/2 cup measuring cup, butter knife, rolling pin, pastry blender, a thin metal spatula, flour, crisco, salt and a large glass of ice cold orange juice.  I was out of orange juice when I made these pie crusts so I used water but really, OJ would be better.

oops, I forgot to put the pastry blender out when I took the above picture.

#2:  You want to put a 2:1 ratio of flour:crisco in your large mixing bowl.  For one open top pie (like a chocolate pie or coconut cream pie) I’d use 2 cups flour, 1 cup crisco.  For a closed top pie (like an apple pie or blackberry pie) I’d do at least 2 1/2 cups flour:1 1/2 cup crisco.  Maybe even 3 cups flour:1 1/2 cups crisco.   Then sprinkle salt over the flour and crisco.

#3: Using your pastry blender, combine the flour, crisco and salt until it forms a fine mixture.  Now, do what you need to do to get it thoroughly combined.  BUT- the less you handle the pie dough the better your crust will be.  Excessive handling makes the crust tough- and you want your crust to be light and flaky.

#4:  Now, here’s where it starts to get messy.  Pour at least 1/2 to 2/3 of the glass of ice water in the bowl.  Use your fingers to hold back the ice and fish out any stray ice cubes that make it into the bowl.   Combine until you have one large sticky ball.  If there are still stray bits of dry dough and flour in the bottom, add more water.

Here’s the thing with pie crust- it’s better to have the dough ball too wet than too dry. You’re going to have flour spread on the counter when you’re rolling out the dough and it will soak up any excess wetness. But, if it’s to dry the dough will be crumbly, won’t stick together well or roll out correctly.   Then you have to put it back in the bowl, add more water, etc.   Which is not good because, as I said above, the less you handle the dough the better it will be.

#5: A wet, sticky ball of dough.

#6: Since I am making a closed top pie (blackberry), I need to split the dough roughly 1/3 and 2/3.   As you can tell, I get real technical with it.  Using my hand, I eyeball about where 2/3 of the pie is and separate it.

#7: Spread a generous amount of flour on your counter and put the dough ball on top of it.

#8: Now, gently pat the dough and turn it several times on the floured surface to get a nice, smooth, floured ball of dough.

#9: Using your rolling pin, start to roll out the pie dough.  If the top of the dough gets sticky and starts to cling to your rolling pin, just sprinkle more flour on top.

IMPORTANT: When you are rolling out the pie dough do NOT bear down on the rolling pin.  Be gentle rolling it out and as your rolling pin nears the edge of the pie dough lift UP on the rolling pin instead of pressing down.

#10:  Keep going until you have a nice, smooth, flat pie crust.  If the edges are somewhat raggy, don’t worry about it.  They are going to be rolled under in a minute anyway so it doesn’t matter.

#11:  If you are new to making crust it might be hard for you to judge how big you need to roll it out.  A quick cheater way is to upend your pie plate on the crust.   This is about how much extra room you should have around the edge of the pie crust to accommodate for the depth of the pie plate and extra for around the edges when you crimp.

#12: Take your thin, metal spatula and start running it under the pie crust all the way around.  You want to gently loosen it from the counter.

#13: You probably won’t be able to quite reach the middle, so loose around the edges as much as you can and then flip half of the crust over on itself as I did below.  Then use the spatula to finish loosening the crust from the counter.

#14:  Grab your pie plate and put it directly behind the pie crust.   You are going to QUICKLY lift the pie crust and set it in the plate.   If you try to carry the crust half way across the counter it will rip and you’ll have to start over.

#15: Put crust in the plate.

#16: Open the crust back up so that it covers the whole pie plate.

#17:  Add your pie filling.

#18:  Put a couple dabs of butter on top.

#19: Now, go back to your bowl.  Remember you have that smaller, 1/3 of the dough ball still there?   Go ahead and roll it out just like you did above.  Loosen it from the counter and flip it in half.

#20:  Place it on top of your pie.

#21:  Unfold it so that it covers the entire pie.

#22: Take all the excess, raggedy ends of crust hanging over the sides and gently turn them under.  Sort of press them together while you do this to seal the crust.   Then use your thumb and fingers to crimp the edge to make it look pretty.

#23:  Here’s the pie with the edges turned over but not yet crimped.

#24:  Once you’ve crimped the edges, use your knife to add some slits into the top of the pie.

#25:  Bake pie until the edges are golden brown and crispy.

#26:  Fresh blackberry pie!