pie crust recipe

Generational Pie Crust Recipe

/ sandramervillehart

Cindy Ervin Huff, fellow author in “The Cowboys,” shares a family recipe that’s been passed down for generations. She also has a new historical romance book release that I loved! Welcome back to Historical Nibbles, Cindy!

by Cindy Ervin Huff

This recipe has been in my husband’s family for generations. It makes four crusts or several tarts.

Back in the day this recipe was created, the perfect pie crust was the envy of every homemaker. Pies were more often made than cakes. Like the little girls in my historical romance Rescuing Her Heart, they learned to make pies at an early age. Even I remember having tiny pans as a child and my mother helping me make a pie.

It was this recipe from my mother-in-law’s family that made my flaky, delicious crusts something to be proud of. I imagine my heroine Delilah James in Rescuing Her Heart used a similar recipe  when baking pies for her bakery.  

Bakers often kept recipes in their heads so no one could steal them. They measured by sight … a pinch of this, a handful of that.

A cup was not always the same depending on the tea cup one used. Standard measuring cups were slow to appear in every homemaker’s kitchen in the 1800s. Some recipes or receipts as they were often called only listed ingredients, like this one. Others gave detailed directions. Note there is no temperature listed either. Women learned from their mothers or grandmothers how to shape the dough and its various uses and how hot the oven needed to be.

This dough is good for fried pies too. Modern stoves with consistent temperatures made successful pie crusts so much easier.

Foolproof Pie Crust

Mix together in a bowl with a fork:

4 cups flour

1 ¾ cups vegetable shortening (Crisco, or Margarine, older recipes used Lard)

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons salt

In a second bowl beat:

1 tablespoon vinegar (I used apple cider)

1 egg

½ cup water

Combine and stir until moist.

My mother admired my pie crusts so much my husband made her plaque for her kitchen with the recipe on it!

About Cindy

Cindy Ervin Huff is an Award-winning author of Historical and Contemporary Romance. She loves infusing hope into her stories of broken people. She’s addicted to reading and chocolate. Her idea of a vacation is visiting historical sites and an ideal date with her hubby of almost fifty years would be live theater.

Visit her at her blog.

Rescuing Her Heart

As her husband’s evil deeds haunt a mail-order bride from the grave, can she learn to trust again and open her heart to true love? Jed has his own nightmares from a POW camp and understands Delilah better than she knows herself. Can two broken people form a forever bond?

Mom’s Pie Crust Recipe

/ sandramervillehart / 3 Comments

I have to confess when baking pies I usually save time by purchasing pie crust, but sometimes I make it from scratch. My mind goes back to childhood days and my mom’s pies. She made her own pie crust. She taught me how to make it.

This is her recipe for an 8 or 9-inch double pie crust.

Ingredients 

1 ½ cups sifted flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup shortening

4 to 5 tablespoons water

Sift together the flour and salt. Cut in the shortening (she always used Crisco … so do I) with a pastry blender or a fork until the pieces are the size of small peas.

Stir in 4 tablespoons of water. Add another tablespoon of water if ingredients are too dry. (I always need the extra tablespoon of water.)

Divide the dough in half.

Sprinkle clean counter surface lightly with flour. Rub a little flour over a rolling pin to prevent it from sticking to the dough.

Plop the dough in the middle of the floured surface. Flatten it a bit with your hand to get it started. Then take the rolling pin and, starting from the center with each stroke, roll smoothly toward the side. Alternate strokes to each side and top and bottom.

Roll dough until it is the right size for your pie dish. Layers will be thin. I’ve found that it helps to gently fold the crust in half before picking it up and arranging in on the pie dish.

If you’re like me, you have a little more on one side than another. After the crust is in place, follow the edges with a fork to cut off the excess.

My mom usually dipped a fork in flour and made a pattern with it around the edges. I use my thumbs to make a pattern.

Poke a few holes in the bottom crust and around the sides using a fork.

Hint: Save the excess dough to clean the flour off the counter. That’s another hint from my mom.

Enjoy!

-Sandra Merville Hart