Hellobee Boards

Pillsbury, in the box. hehe, sorry. I am too scared to make my own pie crust yet. I tried once and it was not great.

Hope you find a winning recipe!

This is my Grandma's secret recipe for a great flaky crust

2 cups butter flavored Crisco
4 cups Pillsbury flour
2 tsp salt
7-8 Tbsp ice cold water

Combine Crisco, flour, and salt with a pastry cutter until mixture is a size of peas. Sprinkle in cold water. Mix with your hands and form the dough into a ball. Wrap dough ball in wax paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle flour lightly on counter. Roll out about half of the dough and place in the pie tin. Add filling. Roll out remaining dough and cover pie. Trim and press edges and perforate top with a fork.

Before baking, brush the top of the pie with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

@cheesetomywhine: I recently tried a new pie crust recipe that uses... wait for it... cream cheese! It made for a really flaky and tender crust!

Never going back to shortening

http://emmaeats.com/2011/11/23/sugar-pie-honey-bunch/

I use a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. She has a few on her blog, but I recommend her "Pie Crust 102" recipe. It's easy and super tasty.

@sarah.clarisse: yessssss! Changed my life (well, the instructions for rolling it out. The recipe is great, but the instructions are a total gamechanger!).

@sarah.clarisse: I do too and would recommend her recipe as well.

I have the same pie dough perspective as Deb -
better is the best, no need for shortening
you want to see chunks of butter in your dough
keep the butter and water really cold
no superfluous ingredients are necessary (vodka, vinegar, etc.)

The one place I differ is that I use my food processor to cut up the butter in the flour, but then I dump it into a bowl and add the water and knead by hand. My pastry blender isn't strong enough to cut the frozen butter.

Like @mjane: said, her tips are really helpful!