Pie Crust
This is a basic pie crust recipe. It yields crust for one 9"-10" deep dish single crust pie.
Servings 8
Equipment
- food processor
- bowl
- fork
- Silpat
- bench scraper
Ingredients
- 9 ounce flour all-purpose
- 1 ½ tablespoon sugar granulated
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 ounce shortening cubed, very cold (optional: butter flavored)
- 4 ounce butter cubed, very cold
- 2.83 ounce water ice cold
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Pulse all dry ingredients in a food processor until well combined.
- Add shortening, pulse until combined.
- Add butter, pulse until the largest pieces of butter are about the size of large peas.
- Transfer to a separate bowl, add the liquid ingredients and stir quickly and gently with a fork to form a shaggy dough
- Dump out on a silpat and bring together with a bench scraper.
- Using the heals of your hands smear the dough away 1/3 at a time, using the bench scraper to fold the dough back on top of itself (the butter should remain visible in the dough, not getting fully incorporated).
- Form the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic and chill for at least a couple hours before using (1-2 days would be better)
Notes
- For a standard depth pie, you could adjust the flour to 6 ounces, the total fat to 4 ounces and the water to 2 ounce. Or (and this is my preference) you can use the recipe as is and turn the left over dough into pie crust chips
- cut into fun shapes, brush with egg wash and sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar
- bake at 375° until golden brown (~12-15 minutes or so depending on the thickness of the dough and the size of the shapes)
- For variations in flavor, try replacing 1/5-1/4 of the flour with finely ground cookies (such as ginger snaps or chocolate wafers), add up to a teaspoon of spices (such as cinnamon, ginger or pumpkin pie spice), and/or replace some or all of the water with an alternative liquid (such as apple juice), also ice cold. The following are the variations I use for some of our favorite pies
-
Apple Pie
- Swap 2 oz of flour for finely ground spice cookies (ginger snaps, ginger thins, Biscoff, etc.)
- Add 1 tsp cinnamon
- Swap the water for apple cider or juice (ice cold)
-
Pumpkin Pie
- Swap 2 oz of flour for finely ground spice cookies (ginger snaps, ginger thins, Biscoff, etc.)
- Add 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- Swap the water for pumpkin juice (ice cold)
-
Tollhouse Brownie Pecan Pie
- Swap 1.5 oz of flour for finely ground chocolate cookies (chocolate wafers, Oreos without cream, etc)
- Swap 1 oz of flour for finely ground toasted pecans
- Add 1/2 tsp cinnamon
-
Apple Pie