Perfect Pie Crust

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I've been in charge of making the pumpkin pie for my family's Thanksgiving feast for about eighteen years now. After years of practicing Mom's pie crust recipe, I think I've finally got it down.

Perfect Pie Crust

Ingredients:
1 cup sifted flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cold milk

Sift together flour and salt in medium-sized bowl. Pour oil and milk into measuring cup, but do not stir. Add oil and milk all at once to the flour mixture. Stir lightly with a fork. Form dough into a ball and flatten slightly.

Roll between two 12-inch squares of waxed paper. (I find it helpful to dampen the surface of the table below the bottom sheet, so the paper won’t slip on me.) Roll spoke-fashion, going from center to edge of dough. When dough is rolled to edges, it will be the right thickness and size.

Peel off top sheet of paper and flip over onto pie plate. Remove last sheet of waxed paper slowly. Fit crust onto bottom and sides of pie plate.
Use handle of wooden spoon held in right hand and press between thumb and index finger of left hand, going around the edge of the pie plate.

For the pumpkin pie, that’s all I had to do! I used the recipe of the Libby pumpkin can for the filling.
If I were making a different kind of pie that required a baked pie crust, I would have needed to prick the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork dipped in flour before baking it at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

For a double-crust pie, double the ingredients and roll out half at a time.