Pure Hunger

I love pie. I suck at making pie crust. I received a recipe from a good friend of my mother-in-law and I thought I finally had the secret to pie crust success. The crust tasted fabulous, if I could actually manage to roll it out and get it into the pie pan without it falling apart or sticking to the surface. I experimented with other recipes, including one from my new favorite cookbook “Baked” but the crust wasn’t as flaky and light as the recipe I was given. So I learned a few tricks in the method, kept the recipe that tastes good and I am here to share.

Ingredients

4 cups flour
2 cups crisco
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg
1/2 cup ice water
1 tsp vinegar

Mix the first four ingredients. Add the egg, vinegar and just enough ice water to handle the crust without it falling apart.
Now you can try to roll it out right away. I find this challenging and frustrating because the dough is typically sticky. Flour the surface or use wax paper under the crust and on top as you roll out.

My favorite method is to wrap the dough in plastic wrap, flatten into a disk and refrigerate for about an hour and then roll out. The key to pie dough success is to handle the dough as little as possible. When refrigerated, the dough is harder to roll, but you are usually able to successfully roll it out in one try and transfer to the pie pan before baking without it sticking to the surface, crumbling or falling apart. Make sure you roll the dough out about 1-2 inches beyond the diameter of the pie pan. When you put the dough in the pan, it should drape over the sides. This is wonderful, as it bakes, it will shrink and you will want more dough than you think.