Brookie's Cookies and More: Birthday Pie

No, I didn't mis-type. There's no such thing as birthday cake for my dad. For as long as I can remember, he has always had an apple pie at his birthday celebrations. My mom used to make it, but over the last few years, I have been given the task of baking her famous pie.

I posted the recipe and a photo last year, so I thought this year I would give you my tips for making pie crust.

Please excuse the poor quality photos. It was night time when I made the pie.

Normally I use a pastry blender to mix my flour and shortening, but I decided to try using my food processer instead this time. HELLO?? Why haven't I been using this all along? It took about a mintue for my dough to be perfectly ready to go. If you have a food processor, USE IT. I told my husband that the food processer is my new BFF. He asked about my Kitchenaid mixer. Oh yeah. Food processer, you're a very close second!

One of my mom's tips for great pie crust is to touch the dough as little as possible. We always roll our dough on our Tupperware Silcone Mats and use plastic wrap over the top. Just go ahead and roll right on top of it. I usually use two pieces and cross them like a plus sign right over the top of the dough ball.

One the dough is flat and as big as I need it for my pie plate, I take a knife and gently run it between the dough and the silicone mat. Then I fold it in half and then in half again and transport it to the pie plate.

Once that's done, peel off the plastic wrap and fill with the pie filling of your choice. We like apple around here.

I then top the filling with the second pie crust and attempt to make the edges look pretty. I'm not very good at fluting them, but it doesn't stop me from trying.