Mom's Pie Crust Recipe

Something just happened today. All of a sudden, I start craving for pie. Not any pie but sweet potato pie. My first time making a sweet potato pie too. I have never attempted to bake this before and well, there is always a first for everything.

Let's take care of business. Step number 1. The crust. I have seen my mom making apple pie before, so I should be able to make the crust. Somewhere among all the blogs I have read, I learned a new technique on rolling the crust out between wax papers. It really makes rolling out pie crust dough extremely easy.

Crust is a funny thing. I have seen some recipes which called for a whole eggs in the mix or just egg yolk, cream, milk, cream cheese and etc. The variation is endless. I have to agree with my mom that a perfect crust has to be flaky and not sweet. Mom always said let the filing does the sweet talking and she is right.

The basic of pie crust is flour, fat, salt and water. Mom followed a very old recipe which she has gotten from the extremely old, red, Betty Crocker's cookbook. You know it is good when some of the recipes called for lard. Mom said they used to use a lot of lard in baking and the crust always come out flaky and light, something that a lot of new recipe is missing. Give this pie crust recipe a try and you are well on your way to make old-fashioned pie

Mom's Pie Crust Recipe
-Makes one single 9-inch crust

Ingredients:

1 cup of Flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup plu 1 tablespoon of shortening
2-3 tablespoon of cold water

Directions:
1. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Add in shortening. Cut shortening into flour with a pastry cutter till mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
3. Sprinkle 2 tablespoon of water onto flour and shortening mix. Gather dough into a ball.
4. Test if dough has enough moisture by taking a small pinch of dough and break it. If dough crumbles, add another 1 tablespoon of water to the dough.
5. Shape into a ball as you would shaping a snowball.
6. Cover with a moist kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Let sit for 15-20 minutes.
7. In between 2 pieces of wax paper, roll dough out with a rolling pin to about 12 inches wide to cover a 9-inch pan or 10-inches wide to cover a 8-inch pan.