Chocolate Icebox Pie: The Crust

I love pie. I really, really love pie.

So, when we had a "Pie Day" fundraiser at my office a while back, I thought it was the most ingenious fundraising idea ever...especially in my current prego condition. I made a chocolate icebox pie for the event, and I thought it would be a perfect recipe to share on the blog.

First step's first...the crust. The crust recipe I use comes from The Pioneer Woman. However, I like a really thick crust on icebox pie, so I double the recipe and make three pie crusts (it's always good to have extra pie crust in the freezer for a rainy day). If you don't want a thick crust, use half the amounts I listed below and divide the recipe into two pie crusts.

First, round up the ingredients...

• 3 cups Crisco
• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 10 tablespoons cold water
• 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons salt

Put the flour in a large mixing bowl.

I managed to get flour all over my protruding belly during this step :).

Next, add the salt and mix together.

Add the Crisco to the bowl. I love that you can get Crisco in these nice butter-like sticks now.

Using a pastry cutter, gradually work the Crisco into the flour until the mixture resembles "coarse meal," with pea-sized pieces of Crisco.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add to the Crisco/flour mixture.

Add the vinegar and cold water.

Stir all the ingredients together gently until just combined.

Divide into three balls of dough.

Place each ball in a large Ziploc bag and roll slightly to make them flat and easy to stack.

Put the dough in the freezer. Even if you want to use one immediately, place it in the freezer for about 20 minutes to firm up the dough and make it easier to roll out. Also, the dough gets even flakier if you freeze it for at least 24 hours. If you go that route (which I did in this case) take the dough out when you are ready to use it, and place it on the counter for about 20 minutes to thaw.

At this point, I use a slightly different technique for rolling out pie dough...one that doesn't involve any flour! First, slightly wet your counter and stick down plastic wrap.

Place the dough on top of the plastic wrap, and then cover with wax paper.

Gently roll out the dough, from the center outward. Stop when you get cracks around the edge.

Smooth out the cracks before you continue rolling the dough. Repeat this step as necessary.

Roll out the dough until it is about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick depending on how thick you like your crust.

Remove the wax paper and place the pie plate upside down on top of the dough.

Carefully flip over the whole thing and press down the crust into the pie pan before removing the plastic wrap.

Fold over the edges (trim excess if necessary) and flute the edges.

For the chocolate icebox pie, I needed a pre-baked pie crust. For a recipe that doesn't call for a pre-baked crust, you would be ready to go at this point....for example, for a yummy pecan pie...

To pre-bake a crust, place a piece of wax paper filled with dried beans into the crust.

Cook for 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove the wax paper and beans, and prick the bottom of the crust with a fork.

Bake the pie crust (without the wax paper and beans) for an additional 20 minutes or until baked through. Cover the edges with foil if they start to get too done. Now you will have a nice pre-baked crust for your icebox pie.

Let the crust cool while you make the filling....which I will post the recipe for soon!