My hunch, if it was central VA and a BBQ place, was that it wasn't a pate sucree or something similar. It was probably an "American" pie crust. You can make a great flaky crust in about four minutes with butter, flour, and a little ice cold water. Can add a pinch of salt if you want. Leave some pretty large chunks of butter and make sure you do the fraisage. Like always, let it sit for an hour or so or even a day before rolling it out. Most likely based on cost and region, they probably used shortening, but don't. It tastes bad and makes your crust have a bad mouthfeel. Just use butter. Bake it well, maybe weighing it down, and make sure you bake it very close to the time you are going to use it. In other words, don't bake it today for use tomorrow or the next day. It's never as crisp as it is the first day. Let it cool, fill and serve immediately. The water from the filling will start to soften it right away, so you don't want to let that sit if you want to maintain the crispiness. This post was edited by rosesinny on Mon, Feb 18, 13 at 17:57

Clare: Next time , Make it out of the Blue and then freeze it. Don't tell anyone!!! The Ice Cream was my own innovation along with the Recipe. I worked on it for about 6 months. I told you all I can, about your oven. The Cookie tin wouldn't be an issue,unless you have an unusally large one. because heat transfers thru tin in a matter of seconds. They all measure about 11 inches X 16 inches on the outside rim. I would double check your oven temp.again. Something is not right. Another thing I thought, maybe the oven Controls are not going off and on like they should. Next time you Bake something for an hour, check the temp. every 15 minutes or so, to see if it is holding at your set temperature. You can use a cheapo thermommeter. Just check it in boiling water. Lou PS : Don't forget to let us know if you solve the problem.

I have used this recipe for a couple of years now and it is the best I have ever tried. It truly is a NO FAIL crust. And I can't cook! AuntCarol's Pie Crust  Never-Fail Type This pie crust recipe is one thatÂs SUPER easy to roll out  one that never gets soggy  leaving that last piece of pie as good as the first  itÂs the ONLY pie crust recipe IÂll ever use  itÂs the BEST  Ingredients  1 egg  3/4 teaspoon salt  1 tablespoon WHITE vinegar  7 tablespoons water  1 cup shortening (CRISCO)  3 cups flour BEAT egg. ADD salt, vinegar, and water. ADD shortening. BLEND with fork, while ADDING flour about a cup at a time. FORM into one big dough ball. THEN DIVIDE into 3 equal-sized dough balls (or you can divide it into 2 equal-sized dough balls like I do sometimes). ROLL OUT thin on a lightly floured surface and then PLACE into pie pan of your choice. Note: Prepared pie shell should be put into the refrigerator 30 minutes before filling  and REMEMBER all fruit pies should be baked on the lowest rack in your oven  ENJOY  Trish in SC

"And it closes 10/31, so I need to plant fall crops early enough to beat that. My carrot seeds say 70 day maturity, so I was thinking I should plant the last round by mid-August, but should I give them longer than 70 days in the cool fall weather?" Oh, I didn't realize you are using a community garden. So you are saying that you can't use it or get into it to harvest anything after Halloween? The great thing about fall carrots is that they are havestable from about Halloween all the way thru Jan or Feb (or until the ground gets frozen solid). Here they reach maximum size by Thxgiving. Once mature, fall carrots use the cool/cold soil as a fridge to keep them preserved until needed, or until the ground is solid as ice. Covering them up with 3-4" leaves before the worse freeze hits allows them to be "digable" for even longer. On the summer broc, heads start off small but can be picked at any time up to their maximium size. I'd leave them be to grow larger as long as the plants appear healthy and happy and bug free (cabbage loopers love hot weather & broc too). My transplants reach full size here sometime in June. btw, it's a shame that community gardens have a seasonal time limit. Besides fall carrots there are several veggies that do well in the fall and could be harvested up to Xmas such as kale, collards, cabbages, spinach, beets, turnips, and maybe even lettuce and peas if the late season weather is mild enough.