Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks cold butter cut in squares
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon sugar
¼ to ½ cup ice cold water
Making the Crust
Chill all ingredients (very important all ingredients are cold)
Put flour, butter, salt and sugar in food processor and pulse until crumbly. Make sure you are using the blade (metal) attachment if using a food processor.
If you do not have a food processor, you can use a pastry cutter
below, or you can use two knives, cutting the butter inside a bowl.
Don’t feel you have to have a food processor to make pie crust,
Because you don’t!
Pour ice cold water in side of chamber tube
and pulse until crumbly and moist. I like to put ice in my water
to make sure it’s very cold, the colder the better!
Don’t be afraid to add the water, you will know it’s the right
amount when the dough pulls away from the side of chamber, or bowl.
Once dough is ready, dump it out in a floured cutting
board. Fold over 3-4 times and smooth out,
being careful to not warm the dough too much.
Divide dough equally in half, recipe will make 2 – 9″ pie crusts.
Press into plastic wrap.
Cover all edges and press and
flatten dough. Roll out or chill till firm.
If freezing dough, cover with wrap and
put in Ziploc and freeze for up to a month.
Thaw in plastic wrap until thawed enough to roll out.
If making pie right away, follow instructions below.
Roll dough out past the size you want the pie to be on a floured
cutting board, or counter.
Roll dough about a half inch beyond your pie size.
The picture below is a 9-inch pie.
Once you have your dough rolled, place your rolling pin just
inside the pie dough, lift crust up over your rolling pin and
continue to roll until you have all the pie crust on your rolling pin.
Place one side on the closest side of your pie pan and slowly
roll your rolling pin so the dough can easily fall into position
on your pie pan. Don’t worry about dough that is much longer
on one side than the other, you can cut this off with a pair of
scissors trim. Once trimmed, fold under the edges.
Once dough is tucked under, flute edges by pressing on dough
towards outer edge with your thumb, and pressing on dough
opposite at the same time towards your thumb. Brush
egg whites along outer edge and on bottom of pie crust, this
will help avoid crust from being too soggy, and the crust will look prettier.
If you don’t want to do the fluted edge, you can just tuck
the dough under and press all along the edges with a floured fork.
Once your pie crust is made, you can fill with what ever you want.
If recipe calls for a pre-baked pie crust, Place a piece of foil or plastic
wrap, and cover bottom with either uncooked beans or rice, this will
hold down the shell while it bakes.
After 10 minutes, remove and place
back in oven for another 5 minutes.
Remove and cool before filling.
When baking pie crust, to keep the edges from getting too dark, I
use a pie ring and I place it over the pie’s edges after the edge has
firmed up and browned. If no pie ring, you can cover edges with foil,
just make sure crust is set up and browned or the foil will stick to crust
that’s too soft. Once pie crust is done, remove to a cooling rack and let cool.
Fill as desired.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
