I made the pie this weekend and if anyone is on the fence, it is a good recipe and pretty easy to put together. I made a couple of revisions and interested to learn what you think happened. First off, my baking method has always been pie on the bottom shelf, 400 degrees for 30 minutes and 350 degrees for another 30 minutes (this is Cook's Illustrated method), and normally my bottom crust is crispy, brown and firm. This time my bottom crust was pale and frankly undercooked and therefore soft. Here is what I did differently: a. used ceramic (don't think it's stoneware) pan vs my normal glass pie pan, b. used new recipe for all shortening crust (my normal recipe is the misprint in Cook's cookbook using loads and loads of butter, and c. I realize my rack wasn't on the absolute bottom shelf, but was on the second to bottom shelf. So my question is which above scenario (or perhaps more than one) attributed to my soggy/soft bottom crust? It is difficult to determine what may have been the problem-maybe a combination of things. Please call our bakers hot line for help on this problem. Joan @ bakerhotline

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