Pie Crust

What’s flour, salt, Crisco, and ice water? Home-made pie crusts like Grandma Orange used to make – really the only kind I like!

I mixed up three batches Saturday. I find it fairly labor intensive to do it properly so it stays flaky. It’s a good thing I have helpful kitchen utensils to make it easier. I had used D’s mom’s pasty tool for years, but I wore it out and I had to replace it with a new one. One of my latest additions includes the “thickness sticks” – now anything I roll out with my dowel cooks evenly because it has some quality control in it. And I love the mat I received as a Christmas present 2 years ago.


Two batches went into the refrigerator for future use, but the real reason I even made the crusts was for D. He had been talking about the way his mom would use extra piecrust and put preserves on it for D to eat instead of cutting into her freshly made pie.

I did misunderstand him though. I just cut the crust into “cookies” and baked it, thinking he would just spread the preserves over it. It turns out I should have baked them as tarts (and I even have the correct mini-muffin pans I could have used) so he could “fill” them with preserves rather than just having a light topping of it. Oh well, next time.

But I did experiment with a topping on a few of the “cookies” that was a hit. After spreading butter on the dough, there's a pinch of chopped walnuts sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, then topped with a dollop of honey. It resulted in a taste treat that in one bite reminded me of baklava and then in the next a homemade pecan pie! Yummy! ~~K