Pie crust made easy.

 My Grandma King was the queen of thanksgiving for one reason-Pie. I love pie. All pie.Pie filling flows in my veins. Except mince meat. I've never been able to get behind that one.
My struggle has always been the crust. Do you despise piecrust the way I do? How do the pie experts make two cups of flour into a perfectly beautiful crust? I don't know. I will probably never know, what I do know is that I have found a solution.

Tastes like summer.

I made my own pie crust recipe. It's pretty standard, the 'secret ingredient' in my crust? Increased measures.
I added a cup of flour and increased the other ingredients accordingly, and now there is plenty of dough so I don't have to scrape and scrounge trying to piece the thing together. Just beautiful flaky crustiness.

Last night we had a 'grown-ups only' party to attend and we were asked to bring a desert for 12. What better time to experiment with desert then when you are going to a party with a bunch of people you don't really know... right?

Pie in a 9x13 anyone?

Both of these pies are Peach, Plum, Black Cherry- our new favorite.

It took an hour and a half to cook, but it was pretty and delicious (equally important to me), AND- only took one batch of dough.

Without further adieu, The Easiest pie crust ever.

3 C White Flour

1/2 C  cold salted butter

1/2 C shortening blend (Lard and Veg)*

2 tsp kosher salt

Cut together until crumble, make well add water:

8-9 tbls Ice water

Cut until dough forms, do not over kneed. Use immediately or   refrigerate. 

*shortening blend is something you buys premixed. You don't have to mix it yourself, although I supposed you could.

Roll out on floured counter top. Make pie of your choice... cook at 425 degrees (F) until filling in the middle boils.bubbles (standard pie about 35 minutes, 9x13 about 80 minutes) . If you crust starts to get to brown- tent with foil. Then eat.

If you try it, let me know how it works for you.