Perfect Pie Crust

I’m going to spare you the drawn-out dramatic back story and avoid telling you why you need to make pie crust from scratch. Everyone likes pie and everyone knows that homemade is always better than store bought. This is how I make it (and it always comes out delicious).

First, I use a cheese grater and grate a stick of butter. I know this sounds weird but trust me on this. The secret to flaky pie crust is keeping the butter as cold as possible until it hits the oven. The butter melts and leaves flaky and delicious pockets throughout the crust. Grating the butter allows you to get more butter pockets throughout the crust. After grating the butter, put it in a bowl and into the freezer until you are ready to use it.

Add the flour and salt to a bowl. Use a pastry cutter (or fork) to cut the Crisco into the flour. Once it looks evenly incorporated do the same thing with the grated butter.

It should look like the picture above.

Next, slowly add water while mixing. The amount of water needed will depend on the temperature and the humidity. I never measure the amount of water that I use because it is almost always different. I add a small amount of water at a time until it looks like the picture below and almost all of the flour has turned into a dough. Don’t add too much water, just enough for it to come together. Also avoid over-mixing. Mix it until it is incorporated and stop.

Place the dough in the fridge for about twenty minutes and prepare your area for rolling it out.

 

This recipe makes two bottom crusts or a top and a bottom. You can also freeze the dough to save time for the future you! I like to roll it out into disposable pie pans before freezing for even more convenience.