Pie Made Easy

Pie Made Easy

You can make this pie crust gluten free by substituting gluten free flour for regular flour. I use the Costco blend. Instead of rolling the dough out, you will need to form the pie crust in the pie pan. The gluten free dough will be a little tricky to work with, but it tastes so darn good. Most people won’t even notice that this pie shell is gluten free.

Per­fect Pie Crust

Enough for 1 small  (2 crust) pie. This is the 8 inch dis­pos­able tin size. Dou­ble the recipe for larger pies.
1 rounded cup of flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup but­ter fla­vored Crisco
Mix together with fin­gers until fine crumbs form. (Do not knead)
Add 1/4 cup water all at once. Form dough.

To make a pie shell, place dough on the BACK side of tin (Upside down), poke all over with fork, bake on BOTTOM shelf of oven at 375 for 10–12 min­utes. It will sep­a­rate from the tin when done. Give a lit­tle shake to see if the pie crust moves. If it does, it’s done. Let cool. Remove crust from bot­tom of pan and set inside tin. Since the crust was baked on the out­side of the tin, the crust will be the per­fect size after cook­ing because it shrinks.

A 2 crust pie (filled) is baked on the BOTTOM shelf of oven at 375 fro 1 hour. Add 20 — 25 min­utes for frozen pie. Before bak­ing 2 crust pie, frozen or fresh, dot top with milk and sprin­kle with sugar.

Stan­dard Vanilla Cream Pie Filling:

5 cups milk
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn starch
1 small pack­age cook and serve pud­ding (Vanilla, Choco­late, But­ter­scotch)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract if mak­ing vanilla
Beat all ingre­di­ents together. Cook over medium high heat, stir­ring con­stantly. Remove from heat when thick. Place plas­tic wrap directly on pud­ding and cool com­pletely. Place in baked pie shell. Top with cream.

Apple Pie Fill­ing (enough for 3 pies)

1 large can sliced apples in water (#10 can)
Bring to a boil and thicken with the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents that have been mixed together.
6 cups sugar
7/8 cup clear gel (or sub­sti­tute with 7/8 cup corn starch)
1 tsp apple pie spice
Stir until thick and remove from heat.

The MOST INCREDIBLE CHOCOLATE PIE EVER!

This will take a lit­tle time, but boy is it worth it!

1 ten inch pas­try shell: (Home­made is obvi­ously the best)
4 egg yolks: Save the egg whites if you wish to make Meringue for pies. If not, dis­card. I pre­fer whip cream.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn­starch
4 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 tea­spoon vanilla
1 cup milk choco­late morsels
Save egg whites if you wish to make meringue for pie. (FYI, I never make the meringue. Instead I save the whites and make egg white omelettes. I prefer whipped cream on my chocolate pie. Pure, unadulterated whipped cream. It’s soooooo good.)

Pre­pare and bake pie shell. Set aside.
In medium bowl, beat egg yolks; set aside. In a heavy saucepan com­bine sugar and corn starch. Mix well. Whisk in milk. Cook and whisk over medium-high heat for 16–19 min­utes or until slightly thick­ened. Whisk 1/4 of mix­ture into yolks. Whisk yolk mix­ture into saucepan. Cook and whisk at medium-low for 5–6 min­utes or until thick­ened. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Stir in choco­late until it melts. Pour into pas­try. Cover the pud­ding only imme­di­ately with plas­tic wrap to pre­vent a pud­ding skin from form­ing. Serve warm or chilled with whip cream or see the direc­tions for meringue.

If you wish to top with meringue
4 egg whites
1/2 tea­spoon cream of tar­tar
1/2 cup sugar

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees. In mix­ing bowl com­bine egg whites and cream of tar­tar. Beat 15–30 sec­onds until foamy. Grad­u­ally add sugar, beat­ing at medium speed for 1 1/2−2 min­utes. Turn mixer on high and beat for another 1 1/2−2 min­utes. Spread evenly over warm pie — seal to pas­try. Bake 15 min­utes until meringue is golden brown. Turn off oven. Cool pie in oven with door ajar for 2 hours. Cool on a rack at room temp. away from drafts for 3 hours. Serve.