A pie is a baked dish containing meat, fruits, vegetables, custard and puddings .A pie crust on the other hand is pan or dish covered with pastry dough and it is often made into a single pie crust or double pie crust. A single pie crust is usually filled with savoury food(placed on top of the pastry) and it is usually baked opened, while a double pie crust may contain the same filling but covered with another pastry as a shell before baking. With a pastry crust, there are different types of pie crusts recipes. A Pie crusts can be made with butter, egg, flour olive oil and vinegar. You can make a pie crust with butter or shortening and butter can be substituted for shortening when making pie crust and vice versa. Egg wash or oil is usually used to brush the pie pastry to prevent it from drying out in time. You can make an easy pie crust at home for filling of different pie recipes at home, instead of buying the already made pie crust from the grocery store. The simple procedures would help you to learn that quickly. Also, you can still make a no crust pumpkin pie at home; pumpkin pie without crust is still fine if you have a perfect pie pan for that.
Table of Contents
Mixing of pie pastry
A pie dough is basically prepared with hand, however, a food processor can still serve the same purpose of mixing the dough, but in this case, the dough doesnt really need to be over worked on, it just need to be mixed for few minutes until it is crumbly and easy to fold into one pastry, the process of leaving the bowl clean is one of the signs that shows that the pie pastry is perfectly worked on or mixed. Should in case your dough is extremely soft; a little flour can be added to correct it.
Single pie crust Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 150g butter (margarine)
- teaspoon salt
- 4 table spoon cold water ( ice water preferably)
- 1 egg (optional)
A pie pan, a stainless steel flat plate can serve this purpose too.
Pie crust ingredients
How to make a pie crust
- In a bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour and salt) and mix well.
- Add butter into the flour and lightly mix until you have something like tiny bread crumbs
- Add cold water1 table spoon at a time and mix until the pie dough is firm enough to hold together.
- Mould the dough into one ball and cover the dough with a plastic bag to rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.
- Dust your plain surface with flour and place the dough on the surface and roll it out
- Roll out the dough from the centre until it is flatten at the edges about 1/8 inches thick or slim.
- Wrap the dough around the rolling pin and unroll it over the bottom of the pie pan.
- Use a sharp knife or scissors to cut out the excess pastry dangling around the pan or fold it under the pie dish.
- Use a fork to decorate the edges of the pie or use your fingers to make some beautiful decoration at the edges of the dough.
- Leave the dough to chill in the fridge for 20 minutes in the fridge or till you are ready to make use of it or go ahead and fill it with your pumpkin pie mixture or any pie filling or your choice.
If you are making a double pie crusts (apple pie crust) you can double some of the ingredients, especially the flour and butter and you can make more than 1 pie crust and use one for covering the fillings before baking the pie.
Simple steps to make a pie crust
- Combine dried flour and salt and mix to combine
- Add butter to the flour mixture and mix until you notice some tiny crumbs
- Add water, 1 tablespoon at a time and mix until the flour is firm and you can mould everything together.
4. Mould and wrap the dough with a plastic or nylon bag to rest for at most 30 minutes.
5. Sprinkle a little flour on your plan surface or board and rolling pin and place the rested dough on it.
After resting the dough for 30 minutes, spread your surface with flour and place the dough on it to roll.
6. Roll out the dough from the centre, tuning as you do, until it is 1/8 inches thin.
Process of rolling out pie crust dough into a flat pastry.
A finished rolled dough for pie crust
7. Gently wrap the dough over the rolling pin and transfer it to your pie dish/pan.
Wrap the the dough over the rolling pin and gently transfer it over the pie dish.
8. Unwrap the pastry and adjust it to the centre of the pie pan. Let the pastry take the shape of the pie dish.
The pastry has been tranfered over the pie dish. you can use any type of heat proof flat dish for baking of pumpkin pie crust
Carefully reduce some of the dangling pastry with a knife and leave enough to cover the edges of the pie dish.
9. Cut out the excess crust hanging round the dish with a sharp knife or with a pair of scissors.
10. Decorate the edges of the crust with your fingers or you can use a fork to achieve that to save time, leave the pie crust in the fridge or fill it with you desired pie fillings and start baking.
Decorate the edges of the pumpkin pie pastry to your taste; you can as well use a fork to make some strip on the edges if you prefer.
Your pie crust is ready. This is a very simple DIY that you can make in no time, it is just the matter of playing with the pastry to give it your preferred design.
You can fill your pie crust with prepared pumpkin mixture and bake it (pumpkin pie) just like i did in the picture above
And that was how to make a pumpkin pie crust. Enjoy!