rice, dried beans, lentils or sugarenough to fill the pie shell
Instructions
Combine the flour and salt in a bowl.
Cut in the cold, cubed butter and the cold shortening using a pastry cutter or two knives until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add one tablespoon of water at a time mixing with a fork until the dough is moistened and comes together. You do not want a wet sticky dough or a dry dough.
Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes before rolling.
Roll the dough on a floured surface into a 12" circle to fit your pie plate.
Chill the dough for 30 minutes before baking.
Weighting the pie dough
Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit inside the pie dough that is in the pie plate. Let the edges of the parchment hang over the edge of the pie plate. You can cut the excess later.
Fill the shell of the pie dough with rice or dried beans all the way to the top of the crust even into the crimpled edges as long as the parchment paper is covering the dough. Doing this will keep your crust from getting misshapen and bubble up during baking.
Bake the crust for 20 minutes in a 375° F oven. This will partially bake the crust.
Remove the pie plate from the oven and carefully scoop out the rice, then gently pull out the parchment paper. You can keep the rice and reuse it.
Using a fork, start poking the fork tines into the pie dough all around the bottom and the sides. This is called docking and it will allow the steam from baking escape so the pie browns.
Return the pie plate to the oven and bake for 15 - 20 minutes, until the crust is nice and golden brown.
Your pie crust is now ready for a delicious filling
Notes
Pie Baking TipsChill the pie dough before baking, this gets the butter and shortening cold again which results in flakinessYou can reuse the rice once you can still use it for your rice side dish. Or keep this rice in a ziplock bag and keep reusing it for more pies.As with any pie crust, watch the edges that tend to get too brown. I use this pie crust shield a lot, especially when baking fruit pies.