Guest Blog Post from The Rowdy Baker

Hello Everyone,
Here is a guest post from Lorinda :-) Shes a close blogging friend and so happy she decided to help me out. Doesn't this look amazing.
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Hi, I'm Lorinda from The Rowdy BakerThe Rowdy Baker, here to guest post and give Lysska some much-needed rest and recuperation time. I brought you one of my favorite summer dessert recipes - Raspberry Pie! My granddaughter and I had a lot of fun making one together for a housewarming party.
 
Raspberry pie, decorated for a housewarming party.[/caption] 8 year old Sophie couldn’t quite get the hang of the pastry blender, so we used our (clean) fingers to blend the shortening into the flour. Also, I didn’t take time to chill the pie crust pastry, and we were working at mach speed, but we were still tickled with the results. I’m sure Martha Stewart wouldn’t have dripped any raspberry juice on the top crust, and Paula Deen would have used lard instead of shortening, but you have to admit it looks appetizing.   Crust components for my pie.[/caption] For the house we pressed pie dough into a mold I use for chocolate houses at Christmas, and created a lattice crust. For the lattice, I drew a circle a little bigger than the pie pan on the counter with a pencil, put a piece of waxed paper over the circle, and wove the dough, then trimmed it to size. Hearts around the house instead of the lattice would have been cute, and much easier. Of course, we thought of that after the pie came out of the oven. Oh well. I love to create designs and scenes in pie crust. Here are pictures of two pies I’ve made using that technique. The pie with the farm scene won a blue ribbon at the fair, even though the little pig in the center started sinking into the “mud” on the drive to the fairgrounds, and was just barely sticking his snout out by the time we got there. Maybe it was cuter that way!

 Scenic pie crust.
Farm scene on a huckleberry pie. (Use the raspberry pie recipe, but swap out huckleberries if you're lucky enough to find a lot of them!) My go-to pie crust recipe has been around forever. It goes by different names, but is usually called “Never Fail Pie Crust.” I usually have a psychological need to prove that I am inept enough to screw up anything that says it’s foolproof, but this recipe actually is a gem – and turns out flaky every time, even when I’ve had to re-roll it. Never Fail Pie Crust (makes 2 crusts) 1 cup chilled shortening 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon vinegar 1/4 cup milk Mix flour and salt in medium bowl. Cut in the shortening until it looks like coarse crumbs.