The Reckless Chef

If I’m going to make pumpkin pie from scratch, with real pumpkin and everything, I’m certainly not going to use a pre-fab crust! The Boyfriend’s dad happens to make phenomenal pies, so I snagged his tried-and-true pie crust recipe.

Simple and perfect.

Here’s the recipe, as emailed to me:

Pastry for Single-Crust Pie

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup shortening
4 to 5 tbsp cold water

Pastry for Double-Crust Pie (or two pies)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup shortening
8 to 10 tbsp cold water

Stir together flour and salt.
Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening
until pieces are pea sized.

Sprinkle water over mixture a tbsp at a time
and toss with a fork until all the flour mixture is moistened.

Form dough into a ball and roll out on a floured surface.

I bought a pastry blender pretty much exclusively for this pie crust. I was not even remotely disappointed, and it’s my new favorite kitchen tool (more on that later).

Rolled out, draped, and ready to be shaped into a pie crust.

For a 9″ pie, roll the dough to about 1/8″ thickness and a circle approximately 12″ in diameter. If it’s a little bit lopsided when you drape it, don’t worry – you can take pieces from one side’s overlap and fill in the areas that need some extra dough.
After arranging the dough in the pie pan, I made little fork-tine marks around the edge. You can mold the edges to any pattern that you like, or leave them plain.