Introduction: A Quick Pie Crust

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When you want pie, you want pie. My Grandmother's no-chill pie dough is a quick pie crust recipe which yields delicious results FAST.

I got home late and needed to whip together a quick meal for a dinner party. I made a no fuss chicken dinner and used this crust for a quick apple pie the other day. The whole meal took a little over an hour to prepare, and was quite tasty!

-Forkable

Step 1: The Recipe

My Grandmother's no-chill pie doughis delicious, easy, and quick because you don't need to chill it for a couple hours before rolling out!

This recipe requires:

2 1/2 c. Flour
1 c. Shortening
1 Tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 egg + 1/2 c. cold water

Step 2: Make Your Dough

Sift 2 1/2 c. flour with 1 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt in a bowl.

Add 1 c. Shortening. (see tip below for measuring shortening)

My Grandma uses lard, but I am substituting shortening for this pie dough which works just as well and will keep much longer on a pantry shelf.

Using a pastry cutter or a large fork, fork till chunky.

Take a liquid measuring cup. Add 1 egg (best if at room temp). Add cold water to egg until mixture measures 1/2 cup. Use cold water only as it helps bind dough and keep dough solid when handling. Mix Egg and water together with fork.

Fork water and egg mixture into the dough.

Kneed dough together. Take loose dough and put in an old pillow case which I set aside to use only for baking (make sure you remove any lint from pillow case corners. I usually do this with pillow case inside out). Kneed dough in pillow case until a nice dough forms

Set dough aside to prepare filling.

**Measuring Shortening Tip:

A quick trick to measuring shortening to save mess when dealing with greasy stuff is to take measure it in water. Take a liquid pint measuring cup. Add one cup of water and drop shortening in. Add enough shortening until water measures at 2 cups. (You are measuring by displacing water). With spoon, grab shortening out of measuring cup and discard remaining water. In this way, you don't grease up a measuring cup and makes for an easy clean and saves time!

Step 3: Roll Out Your Dough

The pie dough recipe is enough for two pie crusts. Cut dough ball in half to prepare your crust.

Make sure to flour your surface and your rolling pin and roll out your pie dough. Change angles while rolling to keep it the same thickness throughout. Keep your pie pan handy so you can test to make sure the dough is rolled large enough for your pan.

When your crust is the right size, roll dough around rolling pin and gently transfer dough to pie pan. Pat dough down into contours of pie pan.

Pie Rolling TIP:
Use a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with flour, roll out pie dough. I like rolling on parchment because you can spin it around easy to change your angle and you can lift the edge of the paper to ease your dough onto your rolling pin when you need to move rolled dough into the pan. Parchment paper is not expensive and found at every grocery store. It has many other handy uses in the kitchen so is always good to have around.

Step 4: Finish Crust

Add your pie filling.

If you are making a crust top for your pie, repeat previous step to get your dough rolled out. Using a pastry brush, brush on egg mixture to help top and bottom crusts join.

Once your top and bottom crust are together or if you only need a bottom crust: Cut off any excess pie dough around the edges, leaving about a half an inch for decorative pinching.

Decoratively pinch to finish edges and make your crust very pie-like.

Brush remaining egg mixture on pie crust and your pie is ready for oven.

Done!

Here is a blog post of how my pie turned out.