1/2 cup Crisco vegetable shortening or ½ cup margarine softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons ice water
- Mix flour and salt in mixing bowl. Cut shortening into the flour with a pastry cutter or knife, until mixture resembles the texture of tiny split peas. It is better to not use your hands to try to mix it, because the heat from you hands melts the shortening, which causes the pastry to be heavy, not light and flaky.
- Once mixture is the right texture, add the ice water and combine with a fork. It may appear as if it needs more water, it does not. With a wooden cooking spoon form the dough into a ball and flatten into a 4-inch-wide disk. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate while you make your pie filling.
- Remove dough disk from refrigerator. If stiff and very cold, let stand until dough is cool but malleable.
- Using a floured rolling pin, roll dough disk on a lightly floured surface from the center out in each direction, forming a 12-inch circle. To transfer dough into pie pan, roll it around the rolling pin, lift and unroll dough, centering it in an un-greased 9-inch regular or deep-dish pie plate. ( or Another method to get the dough into the pie pan: fold dough in quarters, then place dough point in center of pie pan and unfold dough.)
Makes one (9-inch) pie crust. Recipe can be doubled for a two-crust pie.