If you think the phrase “easy as pie” should read “easy as EATING pie”—and certainly not “easy as MAKING pie”—you’re not alone. Making piecrusts can be quite a challenge, but with some great tips and tricks in your apron pocket, you’ll be rolling crusts like a pro.

PIECRUST POINTERS

• Rather than starting with an entire stick of butter, slice butter or shortening into small cubes, toss cubes in flour, and place flour-dusted cubes in the freezer for 10 minutes before you begin cutting them into the dough. This will help break the butter or shortening into pea-size pieces that will distribute evenly throughout the dough.

• If your piecrust recipe calls for 100 percent butter, consider replacing half of the butter with shortening. Half butter and half shortening will give you the best of both worlds—the wonderful flavor of butter and the extra flakiness that shortening provides.

• If your piecrust recipe calls for 100 percent shortening, you may use half butter, and it will improve the crust’s flavor, too.

• Measure carefully! Scoop dry ingredients into dry-ingredient measuring cups and level them off with a straight edge. Pour liquids into glass measuring cups so you can see that they are at the correct level.

• Make sure water is icy cold. To do so, fill a large cup with ice; then add water and let it stand for 5 minutes before straining out ice and measuring needed water in another glass measuring cup.

• Blend wet and dry ingredients as little as possible. As soon as dough begins to clump and feels stable enough to hold together in the palm of your hand, stop mixing. Mixing too long will make piecrust tough.

• Chill dough before rolling. To do so, lightly press dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Giving the dough a rest in the refrigerator will solidify its fat and relax the gluten in the flour, both of which help make piecrusts flaky.

• Roll dough out on a cool surface.

• To make crust rolling a no-stick snap, place the dough disk between two large sheets of floured parchment paper. Roll from the center of the dough disk to the outside edges, moving in a circular motion to keep the crust round.

• For best results, bake pies in glass pie plates. Dark—or anodized—pie plates work well, too. Avoid shiny pie plates; they tend to make the bottom crust soggy.

• To keep bottom crusts of fruit-filled pies from becoming soggy, sprinkle lightly with cookie crumbs before adding fruit filling. When top crust goes on, be sure to cut several openings in the upper crust to allow steam to escape.

• For best color and flakiness, bake pies on the bottom rack of the oven.

• To prevent the fluted, outer edge of the piecrust from over-browning, shield the edges with strips of aluminum foil. Apply the foil strips gently before you place the pie in the oven to bake. Remove the foil strips 15 to 20 minutes before the end of the baking time to allow the edges to brown.

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