Pie Crust 101: How to assemble a pie

One of the main keys to flaky dough is to have it be constantly cold. If you have hot, sweaty hands it's okay...that's what flour and a refridgerator are for. After touching dough, even for a minute or two, pop it back in the refridgerator or freezer for a minute to get it to cool down.

After following my crust recipe you should have, unwrapped from saran wrap, a perfect ball of dough. Take your dough cutter doo-hickey and cut it in half placing one half in fridge. The cross section should look like a nice pastry with many layers and chunks of butter. The moisture will have distrubuted into the flour by now to make for dough that's easy to work with but there will probably still be some dry, crumbly bits you'll have to work in. Lightly sprinkle surface and top of dough with flour. Press down once firmly on the dough with your palm. Roll it out from the center until it's about 10-12 inches in diameter. Edges will most likely be uneven and scalloped and even have dry crumbly bits around the outside. That's a-okay. Take your cutter and slide it under dough and fold edges over on themselves forming a pentagon or even an octagon if you have teeny tiny hands. (see photo) Pick up pentagon and dust surface with flour again. Precede to roll out a pretty even round. I don't roll my dough out paper thin I try to keep it the thickness of a couple of pennies. Fold your dough into a square by scooping it off the surface then folding it in half and folding it again with you cutter. Immediately return to the fridge and roll out other round.

Unfold a crust round over your pan. (I prefer glass pans because they get hot enough to crisp up and brown the bottom crust and you can see easily if your pie is fully baked.) Press crust from the outside of the bottom up the the rim of the pan and seal it all along the wall of pan with your fingers. Press all along the bottom of the pan to seal it and get all the air out. If crust is slipping or is super soft, pop it into freezer for a minute. Refridgerate both crusts while you make the filling.

Extra Tip: A standard amount of fruit filling for a pie is six heaping cups. Don't have a wimpy, sunken pie, fill 'er up!

Add filling to your pie and immediately unfold top pie crust evenly over it. Press the top and bottom crust together right at the rim of pan. With your scissors cut around the pressed down radius so there's a nice even inch or so left hanging over pan. You can fold that dough over to make the crust which is the easiest way to go or you can fold the dough under and tuck it into the space between the bottom crust and pan and then seal the crust back to rim of pan with a firm push. (See photos) I usually tuck my crust under because it allows the juices of the filling to flow into the crust and flavor it.

Cut hole in center of pie that's about dime size by cutting a cross then peeling back corners. Cut slits decoratively into pie around the center hole. I don't put any cream or egg wash on my pies because I have found the added moisture doesn't allow for the immediate crisping of the crust so it becomes a little more bready. I do sprinkle my pies very liberaly with white or brown sugar. Especially on the outside crust part try to get sugar to stick there.

I bake my pies at 425 degrees for about ten minutes and then turn it down to 350 degrees. You'll know it's done when it's golden brown and filling is bubbling.