Lemon Pie

Ingredients:

For crust:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 4-8 tablespoons ice water

For filling:

• 6 eggs, at room temperature
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup flour
• zest from 2 lemons
• juice from 4 lemons

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First add flour, salt, shortening and milk to a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter or fork, cut shortening into the flour mixture until it looks like coarse crumbs.

Slowly add ice water, one tablespoon at a time, to the crust mixture until the mixture comes together as a soft dough. Be careful not to add water too quickly so that dough does not become sticky.

When dough comes together, turn out onto floured surface. Roll dough with rolling pin, rotating dough 1/4 turn after every other roll (to prevent it from sticking). Roll dough out several inches larger than the pie pan you will be using.

Once dough has been rolled out, carefully fold the dough into quarters, lift and place into the pie pan. Alternatively, you could gently roll the dough onto the rolling pin then unroll into the pie plate.

Gently form the pie crust to fit into the pan, lifting and adjusting as needed. Once the pie crust is fitted into the pie plate, trim the excess edge of the crust so that about 1 inch of crust overhangs the edge of the plate.

Gently fold the extra crust under the edge of the plate all the way around. Then "flute" the edge of the crust by pinching the crust with index fingers and thumb. Hold your thumb under the edge of the crust while pinching on either side of it with both index fingers. Repeat process all the way around the plate; this will result in a fluted edge for your pie. Refrigerate the crust while making the filling.

In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, begin by beating eggs. (A hand mixer or large whisk can be used as well.) Keep the mixer running while adding each of the next ingredients to keep mixture smooth.

With mixer still running, slowly add sugar and mix until blended.

Next add flour while mixer continues to run. Keep mixer on lower speed and add flour slowly so that the flour stays in the bowl and does not explode back out into the kitchen. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all flour and sugar has been incorporated into the egg mixture. Turn off the mixer.

If you haven't zested a lemon before, you can use a microplane grater or even a cheese grater to gently remove the skin from the lemon. You only want to remove the yellow part of the skin, which is where the oils and flavors are; you do not want to grate into the white portion of the skin as it is bitter. Zest 2 of the lemons.

After the lemons have been zested, roll them on the counter. Then cut them in half and squeeze the juice out of them. Rolling the lemons on the counter helps release the juice from the lemons. Juice the remaining 2 lemons as well. You should end up with almost 1 cup of lemon juice. Be sure to strain the lemon juice so that no seeds or pulp are in the juice.

With the mixer running, add zest and lemon juice to filling mixture. Once all ingredients are combined, turn off mixer and scrape down sides to ensure that all ingredients have been fully incorporated.

Remove pie crust from refrigerator. Gently pour filling into pie crust and place pie into oven. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour. The pie should be firm in the center when it's done.

Let the pie cool completely before cutting. Then enjoy!!!