Have you ever made pie crust from scratch? I was afraid to even attempt it for many years after watching my mother make them when I was younger. It was easy enough, but that was a lot of work and can be a daunting task; measuring out all of the ingredients and rolling out the dough. And if you don’t get the ingredients just right, or you overwork the dough, the crusts don’t turn out well. Besides, why make them from scratch when grocery stores carry frozen ready-to-fill shells or ready-to-use flat crusts in the dairy section.
Fast forward several years and I got on a freezer cooking kick to stock my freezer. I wanted to make a few homemade chicken pot pies, so I went on the search for a recipe to make a huge batch of pie crust dough.
I tweaked a recipe that sounded like it would work, by substituting butter-flavored vegetable shortening for the butter. Shortening is suppose to be better than butter for making flaky pie crusts. Then I added some vinegar, because it helps keep the dough from getting tough and also helps create a flaky pie crust.
I was extremely pleased with this pie crust! It’s perfect for either sweet or savory pies. It’s rich, buttery and flakey, and it freezes beautifully, so it’s a huge timesaver when you need homemade pie crusts. I figured the pie crust ended up costing about 50¢ each.
I actually enjoyed making the dough. This recipe cuts down on the tedious measuring, which is what I hate about baking, by using a full can of shortening and a 5# bag of flour with 2 cups removed. Brown sugar could be substituted for the white sugar.
Using a pastry cutter to cut the shortening into the flour is so much easier on the hands and wrists than a fork. (The pastry cutter can also be used to quickly chop herbs and nuts, too)
How to Make Pie Crust in Bulk
Makes 20 single pie crusts
Ingredients
- 5 pounds flour (minus 2 cups)
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 7 teaspoons salt
- 3 pound can butter-flavored vegetable shortening
- 4 tablespoons vinegar
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups water
Directions
- Pour the flour into a large bowl, then remove 2 cups of flour and dump it back in the bag.
- Stir the sugar and salt to the flour.
- Use a fork or pastry cutter to cut the shortening into the flour.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the vinegar, eggs and water. Or skip the bowl and pour the vinegar, eggs and water into the empty shortening can, and then whisk together.
- Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture and then blend with a fork or pastry cutter until the dry ingredients are moistened.
- Using your hands, lightly blend the dough making sure there is no dry flour in the bottom of the bowl, and then form dough into a ball. Don’t overwork the dough.
- Cover the bowl and chill for at least 15 – 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough to make 20 baseball size dough balls. The easiest method I have found short of weighing each dough ball, is to divide the dough into 5 parts, then cut each one into fourths.
- To freeze, wrap each dough ball in plastic wrap or sandwich bag, then store the individual crust bags in a freezer bag for up to one year. I like to flatten the balls a little to make thawing quicker.
I just eyeballed the 5 clumps of dough to get them as close in size as possible, then cut each in fourths. If you do weigh the dough balls, they are about 7.5 ounces each.
In the photo below, I have 12 individual crust dough balls packaged and ready to freeze on the baking sheet. They freeze a lot faster when they are put on a baking sheet in a single layer, before putting a freezer bag.
One of the dough balls in the container is for the single crust Shaker Lemon Pie I am making tomorrow and the other 7 dough balls will be rolled out and and put in pie pans, before freezing.
Make Your Own Frozen Pie Crust Dough
Take a dough ball out of the freezer, or two if your pie will have a top crust. Allow the dough to thaw in the fridge or on the counter. When thawed, but still cold, sprinkle flour on your work surface and rolling pin, and then roll the dough out to the desired size.
Finish your pie with a beautiful pie edge design.
Don’t waste the scraps after trimming the pie crust. Use a cookie cutter to cut out pretty shapes to decorate the top of the pie. Or save the scraps after each pie making session until there’s enough to make another pie.
Haphazard Homemaker 
In all these years it never occurred to me to make pie crust in bulk and freeze them. I’ve frozen two maybe, but never more than that — what a good idea! I suppose you could also leave them in the un-rolled-out balls and thaw each ball or two and roll out as needed.
Like you, I found a recipe I like years ago, though I use straight butter all the time and love it. A friend used half lard, half butter. To each her own 🙂 Mine is just butter, flour, salt and ice cold water. Works every time. With the scraps I make a new ball, roll it out, spread thinly with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, cut in approx 2×3 squares (random sizes are fine), roll each up tightly and bake till brown. We call these cinnamon roll-ups and consider them the best part of making a pie. They never last till the next day.
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I love reading how other people do things! 🙂 Making the cinnamon roll-ups sounds wonderful.
I leave the dough in slightly flatten balls most of the time, but I wanted to go ahead and make a few ready-to-use pie crusts. I need to make another batch and roll out a bunch of flat dough for a friend to put in her freezer.
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I am lucky to have a kitchen aid food processor. I use that to make pie crust dough. It goes very quickly using it. My pastry cutter is probably older then me. It hangs proudly on the side of the cupboards on display. I bought it 50 years ago at a church rummage sale for probably a quarter. I shopped often at these church sales early in my marriage to get items for my kitchen. Now they are collectables.
Making pie dough ahead to freeze is a good idea especially with the holiday season coming up. I have canned fruit pie filling ready to go for this winter. Good post. Thanks for sharing your recipe.
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Thank you so much! What a wonderful story about your pastry cutter!
Having ready-made pie dough in your freezer and pie filling on the shelf, you can make pie anytime with minimal effort. I also use this pie dough to make 8″ pans of pot pies, an occasional quiche and homemade poptarts.
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Vinegar huh? Never heard that before. Interesting! You mentioned other uses for pastry cutters….I always used mine for breaking up ground meats as it cooked, that is until my cutter died. It was old. I think it belonged to my grandmother. Anyway, haven’t been able to find one since but haven’t looked online. I thought maybe they quit making them. 😮 Lol. Wish I could try some of your pies!
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I love my pastry cutter and don’t know how I managed before without one. 🙂 That’s a fantastic tip using it for breaking up ground meat!
I would share my pies with you, if you were closer. 🙂
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❤ ❤
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I never knew about the vinegar. That tip is a life saver! Thanks!😊
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Thank you, I’m happy to share!
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I have also heard that you can replace vinegar with vodka for a flaky crust.
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I’ve heard that too, but have never tried it.🙂
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Is not easy but definitely worth it 😉
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Yes it is! 🙂
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My experience using deep dish pie pans is that this makes closer to 12 to 14 pies! I’ve made this recipe three times now, the last time the dough was pretty sticky and I should have added another half cup of flour, but it still turned out fine when baked, just a little hard to roll.
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I’m tickled to hear you made them more than once! ☺ Thanks for your input. That’s good to know about the deep dish crusts. I guess I end up using a little extra flour while I’m rolling it out on a well floured surface, so the stickiness hasn’t really been a problem for me. But yes, add a little extra flour to the dough if needed. 🙂
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How long does the dough last in the freezer?
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I’ve used it 8 to 10 months after freezing and it’s still just as good.🙂
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Hi,
I’m getting ready to try this recipe and I’m excited! I love cooking/baking in bulk! Do you know if this recipe would be good for fried hand pies too? I hope so. This will be my first time making pie crust from scratch. Thank you for sharing
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Absolutely! I make sweet and savory pies with this dough…dessert pies, chicken and beef pot pies, hand pies and “poptarts”.
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Yes!!! Thank you! Let me get started!
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Yay! Make lots of good things!
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