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Place flour, salt and shortening in a large mixing bowl and use two knives (or a pastry cutter if you have one) to cut the ingredients together.
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This is a form of mixing that does not mush the flour and the shortening together.
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You simply sit with the bowl in your lap or on a counter and, using two butter knives, create an x and pull apart, just like scissors would do, scraping the blades together.
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Continue to cut in shortening until the pastry mix looks like coarse meal.
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Next, scoop approximately 1 1/4 cup of the pastry mix into a small mixing bowl.
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Add cold water and mix with a fork until it sticks together and you can form a small baseball sized ball.
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If it still seems crumbly, add another tablespoon of water.
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Shape into a ball and refrigerate until ready to use.
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Lightly flour a clean surface.
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Place dough in the center and roll using a lightly floured rolling pin (or clean wine bottle, or pin shaped glassimprovise if you have to).
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Roll it out into a thin circle, rotating the direction you are rolling your dough to create a circle.
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If edges split, dont worry.
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We can fix that, too (just see below)!
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Once pie crust is about the size of a standard size pie plate, flip deep dish pie plate on top of the crust to see if the edges of crust stick out about 2 1/2 inches.
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If they dont, keep rolling a bit more until they do.
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Once pie crust is the right size, rub a little flour onto pie crust and slowly pull it up from the work surface.
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Using both hands, transfer crust to dish, floured surface down.
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Pick up the sides of dough and lay them against the sides of dish, so you dont over-stretch dough.
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Then, using a butter knife, cut the extra dough off by running it along the underside of your pie dish lip.
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If you have one that does not have a lip, cut about a half an inch below the top on the exterior of pie plate.
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Pie crust will shrink and you want a little extra to make sure that it doesnt happen to you!
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Use a fork or some neat edging device to create a pattern around the edge if desired.
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This also helps keep edges from shrinking down.
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The fix if pie crust splits, has a hole, crack, etc.
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: Take a little bit of the extra pie crust you cut off and lightly moisten it with water.
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Then use that to patch areas that need a boost.
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It should stick right in!
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If you have to pre-bake crust for things like apple pie or pumpkin pie, then prick it a few times on the bottom and place a sheet of foil on top.
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Fill with uncooked beans or rice and place in a preheated oven.
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Bake at 375 degrees F for 12 minutes.
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Remove promptly and set on the counter until you are ready to use.
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Recipe makes extra baking mix.
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Grandmomma Walls made her pastry this way.
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Now, three generations later, I am teaching my daughter to use it, too.
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We have five generations of proof that this works!
