If you come to visit our home, be prepared to be put to work in the kitchen. Since I am always cooking or baking something I find it to be more enjoyable to have hands helping me instead of wide eyes watching me. I recently had a friend in town who helped me make pie crust, this was her first time making crust. In fact, before we got started she said to me, “I thought pie crust was just something you buy at the store”, I laughed, tied an apron around her and put her to work. By the end of the afternoon Diana had made 6 pies and become a pie crust master! The crusts turned out so flaky, they were great! Everyone who ate the pies raved about the crust, I know your crowd will also enjoy this recipe.

Clean and prep surface for kneading and rolling out dough …

In a large bowl mix together the flour and salt. Cut in the butter and shortening by using a pastry cutter, with your fingers or by cubing the butter and shortening and adding it to the flour mixture. The flour mixture will become crumbly and resemble pea size dough pieces.

Begin to add the ice water, only add until dough comes together. Test by pinching some of the dough; if it doesn’t hold together, add more water.

Gather the dough into a ball, then divide in half, forming each piece into a disk.

Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 3 days. Let the chilled dough sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes before rolling out. On a lightly floured surface, using a rolling pin, roll out each disk of dough, as needed, into a 12-to 13-inch round, working from the center out and away from you, dusting lightly with flour and rotating the dough as needed to keep the circle even.

Place rolled out dough into your 9 inch round pie pan and poke dough with a fork, don’t worry it doesn’t have to look pretty.

For top crust seal with a dab of milk and pinch dough together as you shape sides and work yourself around.

Then cut a few slits on top and bake until golden brown. You can also freeze the left over dough and use within three months.

Makes 2 crusts

notes: Brush top of crust with an egg wash before baking. An egg wash is just an egg white lightly beaten, you can also add a splash of milk if desired. Also, don’t forget to sprinkle with sugar.

… you may be asking yourself why I haven’t been as consistent with my blog as I usually am, well it’s because I am expecting our third child and I don’t feel like cooking ANYTHING, I don’t even want to look at food right now. So please bare with me … hopefully I’ll be over this soon.