Homemade Pie Crust – Can Anyone Do It?

I finally found a homemade pie crust recipe that eliminates the two things I struggle with the most – cutting in the shortening and rolling out the dough.  This recipe uses vegetable oil instead of shortening and you mix the dough right in the pie pan.  Sound too good to be true?  I thought so too.

I’ve had this recipe in my stash for a couple of years now and never got around to trying it.  But this week Daugther wanted to go blueberry picking and then wanted to bake something when we got home with our fresh picked fruit, so I dug out this recipe and we gave it a go.  The results were delicious and the recipe was easy enough for a young person without a lot of baking experience yet.  Here is the recipe for the pie crust.  I’m also including the blueberry pie filling that we made to go in the crust, but feel free to use the pie crust with any other filling you would like.

MIX-IN-THE-PAN PIE CRUST

1-1/2 cups Flour
3/4 teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
2 Tablespoons Milk

Put the dry ingredients in a 9″ pie pan and stir with a fork to mix together.  Then add the vegetable oil and milk and continue mixing with your fork until the ingredients are well combined.  Then use your hands to spread the dough out in the pan and up the sides to form the pie crust.  Prick the surface a few times with a fork and then bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.

BLUEBERRY PIE FILLING

4 cups Blueberries (divided)
1 cup Sugar
3/4 cup Water
3 Tablespoons Cornstarch

Combine one cup of the blueberries, the sugar, the water, and the cornstarch in a saucepan and heat until the mixture comes to a boil.  Turn down the heat a little bit and continue stirring until the mixture is thick and clear.  Remove from heat and stir in the remaining 3 cups of blueberries.  Pour into the baked pie crust and chill.

So to answer the original question about making homemade pie crusts –  ”Can Anyone Do It?” , with this recipe I would certainly say YES!  I did find that when I cut into the pie, the crust edge was a little crumbly to get out of the pan but that was OK with me.  I’m one of those people that tends to leave behind a big thick edge of pie crust anyway.  My price calculations are that it costs about 47 cents to make this pie crust so it’s a money saver too compared to the pre-made pie crust dough.