Tips for Making Pie Dough There's a necessity to cut some corners at Thanksgiving. You have to prioritize. You can't make everything from fancy hors d'oeuvres to the turkey and sides to the pies all by yourself. You could, but then you'd be either a professional chef or just plain overwhelmed. So you may tempted to buy a pie crust from the supermarket. But don't. Just don't. Better to buy the entire pie from a good bakery than compromise something homemade with an ersatz purchased pie dough. The good news is that you can make the dough as early as today and cross it off your list. I just made mine. Now all I have to do it keep myself from nibbling the raw dough between now and next Wednesday, when the pie-baking commences. Here is my favorite pie dough recipe, and another to a video showing you pie dough basics. I promise, homemade crust is just not that hard. And even if you don't end up with the perfect, flaky, gorgeously fluted crust you see in cookbooks, it will still taste terrific. After all, you can't eat the photos -- and if you did, they'd probably taste a lot like purchased pie dough.