Gluten Free, Dairy Free Pie Crust

Kayden had a Thanksgiving feast with his preschool class and I wanted him to be able to enjoy pie. I turned to my friendly Google search and between 4 recipes that I liked, I came up with my own recipe using the most common ingredients and amounts used and what I liked. This is the first pie that I have EVER made. The closest thing I have come to pie making is take it out of the box and heat it up in the oven. I'm pretty proud of myself for making the crust from scratch. Here it is...

16oz (or 2 cups) gluten free all purpose flour (I used Bavaria Mills)
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp xanthum gum (use more if your flour doesn't already have xanthum gum in it, mine does so I used only 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt
8 Tbsp cold dairy free butter (I used Earth Balance)
1 egg
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice (or cider vinegar)
8-10 Tbsp ice water

1) Mix dry ingredients

2) I found this tip here and it worked beautifully... finely grate a frozen stick of butter. Yes, grate it like cheese. Mix into dry mix. I started out using a wire whisk and ended with my hands.

3) Using your hands, mix the dough into a sandy texture.

4) Mix egg and lemon juice together. Make a well in mix and pour egg and lemon juice in. Mix together, starting in the middle and working your way out until thoroughly mixed.
5) While mixing, slowly add 8 Tbsp ice water until the mixture is like play dough. Use more or less water as needed.
6) Divide into 2 crusts and mold into balls. Wrap in seran wrap and put in refrigerator for 15 mins or more. If you only need one pie crust, put the second one in the freezer for later use.

7) Flatten dough with hands and place dough on lightly floured wax paper. Lightly flour the top of the dough and place another piece of wax paper on top. The wax paper should be a few inches bigger than your pie pan, I ended up using two sheets overlapping each other to make it wide enough.
8) Roll dough until a few inches bigger than pie pan circumference. To make my dough workable and keep it from cracking, I rolled and then folded the dough like a letter (in thirds), then folded it in thirds again so it was the shape of a square. Then rolled out the dough. I think I did this twice and after that my dough stayed together better and I was able to roll it out to the size I needed.

9) Lightly grease pie pan (I used crisco). Peel off top paper and place pie pan upside-down on dough. Flip, adjust dough and peel off bottom layer.
10) Flute the edge. You can find how here. Don't worry too much about making it perfect. If the dough falls apart, just mush it back together. There's no gluten in this dough so you can't overwork it! Put in refrigerator while making pie filling.

I made an apple pie with a crumble top... I also cheated and my filling came from a can. ;)

11) Mix together topping

3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup GF flour
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon sugar
1/3 cup cold butter cut into small pieces (0r use a frozen butter stick and grate)

12) Add pie filling and topping.

13) Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 to 40 mins or until crust is golden brown. I used a glass pie dish, it helped to watch the bottom of the crust and know it was ready.

(Ignore the burnt part on the top right portion, the foil slipped a little and wasn't covering that part for a bit.)

There you go! I LOVE this pie crust. Usually the crust is my least favorite part b/c it tends to be over cooked. This one turned out perfect and was my favorite part of the pie. Next I'm going to make a pumpkin pie using the other half of my dough that I saved in the freezer.

I have to share a funny moment. I couldn't help myself and ate pie for breakfast. Kayden gave me a disgusted look and said, "You know pie isn't healthy."