Easy Perfect Pastry Mix (Pie Crust)

Place flour, salt and shortening in a large mixing bowl and use two knives (or a pastry cutter if you have one) to “cut” the ingredients together. This is a form of mixing that does not mush the flour and the shortening together. You simply sit with the bowl in your lap or on a counter and, using two butter knives, create an “x” and pull apart, just like scissors would do, scraping the blades together. Continue to cut in shortening until the pastry mix looks like coarse meal.

Next, scoop approximately 1 1/4 cup of the pastry mix into a small mixing bowl. Add cold water and mix with a fork until it sticks together and you can form a small baseball sized ball. If it still seems crumbly, add another tablespoon of water. Shape into a ball and refrigerate until ready to use.

Lightly flour a clean surface. Place dough in the center and roll using a lightly floured rolling pin (or clean wine bottle, or pin shaped glass—improvise if you have to). Roll it out into a thin circle, rotating the direction you are rolling your dough to create a circle. If edges split, don’t worry. We can fix that, too (just see below)!

Once pie crust is about the size of a standard size pie plate, flip deep dish pie plate on top of the crust to see if the edges of crust stick out about 2 1/2 inches. If they don’t, keep rolling a bit more until they do.

Once pie crust is the right size, rub a little flour onto pie crust and slowly pull it up from the work surface. Using both hands, transfer crust to dish, floured surface down. Pick up the sides of dough and lay them against the sides of dish, so you don’t over-stretch dough. Then, using a butter knife, cut the extra dough off by running it along the underside of your pie dish lip. If you have one that does not have a lip, cut about a half an inch below the top on the exterior of pie plate. Pie crust will shrink and you want a little extra to make sure that it doesn’t happen to you! Use a fork or some neat edging device to create a pattern around the edge if desired. This also helps keep edges from shrinking down.

The fix if pie crust splits, has a hole, crack, etc.: Take a little bit of the extra pie crust you cut off and lightly moisten it with water. Then use that to patch areas that need a boost. It should stick right in!

If you have to pre-bake crust for things like apple pie or pumpkin pie, then prick it a few times on the bottom and place a sheet of foil on top. Fill with uncooked beans or rice and place in a preheated oven. Bake at 375ºF for 12 minutes. Remove promptly and set on the counter until you are ready to use.

Recipe makes extra baking mix.

Grandmomma Walls made her pastry this way. Now, three generations later, I am teaching my daughter to use it, too. We have five generations of proof that this works!