Pie Crust
I’m going to be posting the recipes I used for my pie competition over the next couple of days. The first thing needed when baking pies is a crust. I’ve actually never made full sized pie crusts before. I went with a William Sonoma recipe that is similar to most pie crust recipes out there. I used butter flavored Crisco and the crusts turned out flaky and delicious. I made 4 crusts even though I only needed 3 just in case I needed that extra one.
See WS link for ingredient list for 1 pie crust and for food processor method. I made sure everything was VERY cold before making my crusts. I measured the ingredients into bowl and put them in the freezer for 45 minutes. I also put my mixing bowl and pastry cutter into the freezer for about 20 minutes.
Pie crust – from William Sonoma
For a 9-inch double-crust pie:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
6 to 7 Tbs. cold water
Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl and toss together. Add the shortening. With your fingertips, 2 knives or a pastry blender, blend the ingredients together, working quickly, until you have a mixture of tiny, irregular flakes and bits about the size of coarse bread crumbs. Sprinkle on the water, 1 Tbs. at a time, stirring gently with a fork after each addition. Add just enough water for the dough to form a rough mass.
With floured hands, pat the dough into a smooth disk (or into 2 disks, one just slightly larger than the other, if you are making a double-crust pie). The dough is now ready to use. It is not necessary to refrigerate the dough before rolling out (unless you included some butter), although for convenience it may be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 2 days.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Jen, I totally love your blog. You always ahve the BEST treats! I LOVE the picture with all the cookies resting on the m&ms. GREAT idea! 🙂
Looks beautiful as always!
perfect use of pink! So interesting about how the cookies reacted to the way you rolled them! Thanks for the heads up!
Your cookies look great and that’s a good tip about getting them to look their best too. My kids and all their friends love these cookies. I’ve made them a few times since I first posted them and they never last long.
thanks for the link!
~ Michelle
Those are beautiful and perfect for such a great cause
What an adorable picture! Also helps that they are for a great cause! 🙂
M&Ms are my favorite treat and I love that during this month everything is PINK! The cookies look fantastic.
I am bummed I missed your Power of Pink contest as I was utilizing October to raise awareness around breast cancer too! I made some cookies and have a post on my site: http://katskitchenplace.blogspot.com/2009/10/october-is-breast-cancer-awareness.html
I like the chocolate cookie base of your cookies! Thank you for sharing. Looking forward to checking back and seeing all what people make towards your challenge 🙂
A chocolate cookie topped with chocolate candies? What could be better? Perhaps a tall, ice cold glass of milk to go with them! They look divine. I’m wondering if you might skip the rolling and flattening by creating a wide log of dough (without M&Ms), slicing to the thickness desired, then pressing candies on top? Seems like the dough might be fairly easy to shape into a log. A quick pop into the fridge before slicing would help firm it up. Just a thought! I can’t wait to try them.
Best,
Casey
http://www.tastestopping.wordpress.com
P.S. Not sure if I’ve invited you before, but I’d love to publish any of your photos that FoodGawker and TasteSpotting decline! Thanks. 😀
I love the dark chocolate and pink M&M contrast. What fantastic cookies:)
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I just made your recipe for these cookies yesterday and took them to church. The kids went nuts and they’ve never turned out as pretty as they did this time. Thanks for the helpful tips because my m&m cookies have never turned out prettier! 9 minutes was also perfect timing as well.
Both pretty and I’m sure delicious! I love how you showed the comparison between batches to give better suggestions for prettier cookies. The final batch are definitely the prettiest of the bunch. I love that the pink pops w/the chocolate cookie.