This is a simple shortening pie crust. I make this one a lot. It is great when you don't have a lot of time to devote to make a crust made with butter.
You can make it and roll it out in about 5-10 minutes.
Another reason I make it a lot is that my daughter prefers this crust to a butter crust.
This recipe is for a 9" single crust pie shell.
If you need a double crust or a lattice crust, just double the recipe.
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup solid shortening
2-3 Tablespoons cold water
With a fork, mix the flour and salt in a bowl.
Add the shortening and work it in with the fork or your hands.
The mixture should be somewhat crumbly.
The shortening should be worked through well and most of the it should be in tiny pieces, but leave a few a little bigger.
Add the water a tablespoon at a time and work it in with the fork.
The dough should just start coming together.
With your hands work the dough just until all the flour is incorporated and you can pat it into a ball.
Flatten and let rest while you flour a counter for rolling the crust out.
Roll out the dough until it is a little larger than the size of your pie pan. To test it, take your pie pan and turn it upside down over the dough.
If you have plenty of room around the pan, it is big enough.
Now carefully, roll the roll up- loosely- and transfer to the pie pan.
Trim the dough away from the edge of the pan. But leave about an inch overhang.
Fold the crust over around the edge and crimp to seal.
Make sure to leave a bit of an edge along the top of the pan.
What does it mean when a recipe says to cut butter into a flour mixture?
It means breaking up the butter or shortening into the flour.
For pastry, you break up the butter/shortening into smaller pieces so that the flour gets coated with some fat and the flour won't absorb too much liquid.
For a struesel topping, you cut in butter to get a crunchy crumbly topping.
There are pastry cutters you can buy to cut in the butter/shortening.
You can also use a fork to just break it up.
What I prefer to do is to work the butter into the flour or sugar/flour mix with my hands.
To do this, just stick your hands into the bowl with the butter and just rub it into the flour.
Make sure you end up with coarse crumbs.
For pastry, leave some of the pieces of butter larger and some smaller.
For a struesel topping, all the butter should be uniform so all the crumbs are about the same size.
When you are baking, your recipe always specifies if you need to prepare your pans in any special way.
But sometimes you can do things a bit differently and still have fabulous results.
When the recipe states to grease the pan, use solid shortening, not cooking oil.
Butter can also be used. But, shortening is recommended.
For pizza crusts, many times you can just sprinkle your pan or stone with cornmeal instead of using shortening. But, use shortening if you are making a pan pizza so the crust won't stick to the sides of the pan.
When making cookies, instead of greasing the pan you can line it with parchment paper. You can also buy silicone mats to line cookie sheets with. The cookies will slide off either the parchment or silicone mat lined pans.
For baking goods that call for flouring and greasing the pan, you can buy sprays that are a combination of flour and cooking spray. One brand is Baker's Joy and the other is made by Pam cooking spray.
When you are making something chocolate and you need to grease and flour the pan, instead of flour- use cocoa powder.
You won't have a white ring show on the brown chocolate.
If you have a non-stick pan, do not use cooking spray on it.
The spray leaves a residue that may build up and be hard to remove.
Hopefully these tips will help you.
This is a simple shortening pie crust. I make this one a lot. It is great when you don't have a lot of time to devote to make a crust made with butter.
