Pi...e

I have found my calling in life. A pie maker! I volunteered to make the pies for the pie eating contest at Kayla's house for pi day. I think I made about 10, besides the two we brought just to eat. I had so much fun! I used to dread making the pie crust until I found a wonderful recipe for "Never Fail Pie Crust." It is more like a dough then regular pie crust, which makes it tons easier to roll out. Not only that, but you can re-roll it numerous times and it still comes out nice and flaky. It stores in the fridge for up to a month, and makes a great on-the-spot FHE snack. (Lady Fingers--roll out the crust, spread on butter, and sprinkle on cinnamon sugar. Oh so good, if not the most healthy snack in the world!)

NEVER FAIL PIE CRUST
5 c. flour
2 1/2 c. shortening
2 tsp. vinegar
2 tsp. salt
1 egg
Water (cold)
Mix flour and salt together. Add the shortening and mix with a pastry blender or fork. Put egg in measuring cup, add vinegar and mix together. Fill up to 1 cup with water. Add gradually to flour mixture.

One of the best cake decorating purchases I have ever made is a large pastry bag. They have the huge star tip on the end, which makes for very professional looking results with whipped cream or frosting, with minimal effort or skill required.



Another great product I found is called "Rich's." You use it in place of cool whip or whipped cream, and it is much more stable then either of those products, making it ideal for outdoor use, or if your cake or pie will be sitting out for quite a while before being eaten. I bought my containers at the local Frontier Pies Restaraunt for about $5 each. Each carton makes about a gallon of whipped topping. For the 12 pies I made, I used about 1 1/2 cartons of the stuff, so it goes quite a long ways.





Here are the finished results. Don't look too closely--I didn't spend a whole lot of time with the pies for the pie eating contest, but for the small amount of time I put into them, not to bad, in my humble opinion. Again, it's all the pastry bag!