A good first recipe
This is the best crust to get you started on your crust making journey. Easy to put together, roll out and pick up. Just because it is easy does not mean that it is not good. This was my mother’s preferred recipe and it always more than met my father’s very high standards for pie crust.
Basic Pie Crust
This is an easy way to get started making pie crust. The crust is easy to assemble, rollout, pick up and place in the pie plate.
Ingredients
Single Crust
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup shortening
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 5 tbsp milk
Double Crust
- 2 3/4 cup flour
- 1 to 1 1/4 cup shortening; more if needed to get correct texture
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 10 tbsp milk
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and sugar.
- Cut in shortening.
- Form a well in the flour mixture and add milk.
- Using a fork, gather dough together until mixture is moistened.
- Press dough into a ball. For a flakier crust, flatten into a 6 in. disk (two disks for a double crust), wrap with plastic, and store in refrigerator for two hours before rolling out.
- When ready to put pastry into pie plate, roll out dough disks on a a lightly floured surface to fit a 9 inch pie plate. Flute edges. Learn how here.
Notes
For double crust, after pressing dough into a ball, divide into 2/3 and 1/3. Use 2/3 recipe for shell and 1/3 for top crust.