My mom taught me to make pie. She made the crust while I peeled the apples. I have been working the recipe to get this:
Perfect pie crust.
2 cups gen purpose flour.
One cup butter flavored Crisco, cold from the fridge.
One tsp Kosher salt.
1/4-1/2 cup ice water, or a bit more if needed.
One sheet plastic wrap laid out on the counter.
In a mixing bowl blend flour and salt.
Cut in Crisco. I use a butter knife to start and a pastry blender (the one with the wires in a semi-circle) to finish. I get it to the size of peas on average, goal is to get all the loose flour stuck to dough. Don't smash or stir, chop. Goal is to get little blobs of Crisco surrounded by flour.
Add 1/4 cup water and FOLD the dough by hand. Scoop up from the bottom. Dough will absorb water and get sticky. 1/4 cup will probably not be enough. DO NOT WORK THE DOUGH. The dough that did not quickly get sticky needs a bit more water, I would put in a bit more, like a tablespoon or so, and do a couple more folds. Keep adding a small amount of water until all the dough has gotten moist and sticks together. The dough will be sticking to your fingers, let it. As soon as all your dough is sticking together transfer it to the plastic sheet, wrap gently into a ball and refrigerate for a least 1/2 hour and good up to 4-5 days.
Handling the dough a lot warms the Crisco, which melts and mixes with the flour and water and makes good leather.
Prepare your filling.
On a wooden cutting board or counter top (I have Quartz) deposit one hand full of flour. Flour your rolling pin good.
Remove the dough from the fridge. The 2 cup recipe will make three nice thin 9" crusts or two thick with a bit left over.
The dough is sticky. Our goal is to gently spread it into a circle without it sticking to the pin or the rolling surface. We use a lot of flour to achieve this goal. We do not want to handle it too much, but we need to get it round.
Take either 1/3 or 1/2 of your dough, cut it with a knife and put it on the flour. Put more flour on it. With cupped floured hands gently form a round disk, like a fillet or hockey puck.
Take your pin and roll out in all directions to make about a 6' disk. Add flour to the top, sprinkle it on and gently pat it. Grab the edge on one side with both hands and flip the disk over. Add flour. We should be able to spread out this disk to the right size for the 9" pie plate at this time without sticking. You can tell when the dough wants to stick, it gets damp looking.
Check your size by putting your pie plate over the dough. Your disk needs to be big enough to fill the pie plate and have about 3/4 to 1" over the side.
Roll the dough onto your pin. Put the pin at the top away from you, grasp the edge of the dough gently with fingers of both hands, put dough against the pin and roll it towards you. Put the pie pan where the dough was. Lift the pin and position the trailing edge of the dough just outside the pan closest to you and unroll the dough into the pan. Position gently with fingers if needed.
If you are doing a pudding pie, bake the one crust. I poke holes in the crust with a fork. Some folks use beans or beads to keep the air bubbles out. 350 for 20-25 minutes.
If you are doing a one crust pie, fold and crimp edges as desired. Fill and bake. 425 for 15 minutes, 350 until done.
If you are doing a two crust pie, fill the pie and set aside. Do the top crust as the bottom. It doesn't need to be quite as big unless you have heaped the filling.
Roll top crust onto pie. I cut around with pie about 1" to smooth the edges. I put my fingers under the crust and finger tips on the edge of the pie pan lip, then cut down onto fingers with a dull knife. First joint works for thin edge which my wife prefers so that's how it is.
I then roll the crusts under and crimp onto the edge of the pan. We are looking to seal the edges here, so a bit of a pinch is good. Decorate as desired. Cut slits in top of crust. Odd # seems lucky to me. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake.
You know you did it right when folks complain the crust is too flaky.
If you have a family favorite, share it. I need a good gluten free recipe.