Straight To Pie Crust Recipe

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Every year, for as long as I can remember, the night before Thanksgiving has been homemade pie making night. When I still lived at home, Mom and I would cut apples, measure the flour and shortening, sprinkle spices and then roll crusts together as the perfect team. Once I moved out and started my own family in a different state, we continued our tradition by telephone.

Over the years, as my children grew up and I took a job outside of the home, I hate to admit this but, I started cutting a few corners with my pie making. I stopped making the crusts. Mom wasn't aware of this as I opted not to tell her. Mom had always been a stickler for doing all of her baking the old-fashioned way. She never used boxed cake or brownie mixes. When she made caramel apples, there wasn't a wrapper in sight. Rice pudding started with actual rice. In her eyes, frozen pie crust was the ultimate sin.

Never wanting to out and out lie to her, I tried my best to avoid the topic but somehow it would always come up.

"I am so thankful for Joyce's pie crust recipe." She'd say. "It's so much better than all of the others. I think it's because of the paste."

Neither of us had ever met Joyce. She was a friend of one of my Mom's lady-friends from years ago. She still had the original recipe card and so we never changed the name. Mom had been using the recipe for as long as I had been baking with her and so my reply would always just be, "Mmm."

She'd go on, "It always rolls out beautifully."

"Uh huh." At this point I'd be guiltily, silently, opening the box of Pillsbury's pie crust. I'd unroll my prefab crust, fill it with my homemade filling and then wait for what I felt was an appropriate amount of time to say, "Mine is in."

At which point she'd always reply, "you are so much faster than me," causing me to cringe.

The next day, when she'd ask how my pies came out and if my crusts had cracked, I'd tell her they were wonderful and the deception would be over for another year.

Last summer when Mom came for a visit she suggested that since we wouldn't be together for the holidays, yet again this year, it would be fun for us to make a couple of apple pies together, for old times sake.

Before I got the chance to come up with an excuse not to, she said, "I'll cut the apples while you make the crust. I've always wondered what it is that you do differently. No matter how hard I try, you're always done before I am."

Not having the heart to tell her, and after a 20 year sabbatical, I made the crust. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.

I've since regained the knack for it and have been doing it ever since. After all of the years of side cutting and looking for the easy way out, I'd forgotten how good a real homemade pie tasted. Mom was right, it is definitely worth the extra time and effort.

Pie Crust Recipe:

1/4 cup water

2 cups flour (separated)

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup shortening