Pie Crust

This is a basic pie crust recipe. It yields crust for one 9"-10" deep dish single crust pie.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword baking, crust, pastry, pie

Prep Time 30

Chilling time 2

Total Time 2 30

Servings

Calories 232kcal

Pulse all dry ingredients in a food processor until well combined.
9 ounce flour, 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt
Add shortening, pulse until well combined, all of the dry ingredients should be coated in shortening and the mixture will look sandy.
2 ounce shortening
Add butter, pulse until the largest pieces of butter are about the size of large peas.
4 ounce butter
Transfer to a separate bowl, add the vanilla and 1oz of the water. Stir quickly and gently with a fork to form a shaggy dough. If the dough does not start to clump together, add water one tablespoon at a time until it does.
1-3 ounce water, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dump out on a silpat and bring together with a bench scraper.
Using the heels of your hands smear 1/3 the dough away. Use the bench scraper to fold the dough back on top of itself. Give the dough 1/4 turn and repeat the process 3 more times. (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)

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