Chill your shortening or lard and do not soften your butter.

Once your fat is cold, cut it into pieces and add to your cold flour.

Use a pastry blender to mix together your salt, flour and fat.

You don’t want to overmix your pie crust. You just want to blend the flour with the fat until you have small and medium size “pebbles.”

Then slowly add your ice cold water and mix together with a fork, you might not use all of your water, it just depends on the type of flour you are using.

If your pie crust looks like this you’ve added too much water and mixed too long.

You want to be able to see the chunks of butter or shortening in your mixture when you refrigerate it.

Do not mix it completely.

When the dough can be formed into a ball by pressing it together make a ball and wrap in plastic wrap.

Let it sit in the fridge for at least three hours. This gives fat a chance to bond with the flour, making a delicious crust when you are finished.

After you have chilled the dough, roll it out and bake per the directions on your pie recipe.