Easy to Make Pie Crust that is flexible and pliable when rolling out. It creates a tender, flaky crust.
Servings 29" single pie crusts (or one double crust)
Prep Time 20 minutesmins
Cook Time 30 minutesmins
Fridge Time 2 hourshrs
Ingredients
2 ounces (½stick)Salted Buttermelted then cooled slightly
1largeEgglightly beaten
½cupcold water
2teaspoonsapple cider vinegar
341 grams (2 ½ cups + 3 Tablespoons )all-purpose flourI recommend Gold Medal
1 ½teaspoonssalt
170 grams (¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons)shortening
Instructions
Whisk the lightly beaten egg, cold water, vinegar and cooled melted butter together (the butter should be room temperature or lukewarm at most, but not solidified). Stick this liquid in the freezer or fridge while you prepare the flour part of the dough so that it stays cold.
In a separate large bowl, whisk the flour and salt together. Add the shortening to the flour and use a pastry cutter to cut the shortening into the flour until the shortening is pea-sized or smaller.
Get your cold egg mixture from the fridge and whisk (it should feel very cold to the touch). If some of your butter has solidified, simply whisk it back into the mixture so that it is a uniform liquid.
Pour the cold egg mixture over the flour/shortening, and use a spatula to fold and combine the two mixtures just until it comes together into a dough and no flour remains. Do not overwork the dough. The dough will be sticky.
Refrigerate overnight if possible, or for at least 2 hours. Divide the dough in half and roll each out to ⅛ inch thickness to make two 9" crusts. I like to roll out the dough so that it is 4" larger than my pie pan, so that I have plenty of pie crust for the pan and the fluted edge.
Wrap and Freeze the pie shells until you are ready to bake them, or refrigerate at least 30 minutes before baking.
How to Blind Bake (partially bake) the Crust (for pies that will be baked again)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Bake the pie crust from cold (frozen crusts take about 15 minutes to thaw at room temperature).
Crumble a square of parchment so that it is flexible. Place the parchment in the cold pie crust and fill the pie shell to the top with ceramic pie weights (you can also use unbaked dried beans).
Bake on the bottom rack in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes, then carefully add a pie shield so that the edge of the crust doesn't overbrown.
Keep the pie weights in the crust, and continue to bake the pie with the pie shield for 15-20 more minutes until the pie crust is close to fully baked (baking time will vary depending on the thickness of your crust and the pie tin you use). If the bottom of the crust has some under-baked areas, that is fine, as it will continue to bake when you bake it a second time with the filling. I recommend using a pie shield the entire time during your second bake of the pie.
Fully Baking a Pie Shell (for cream pies)
Follow the instructions above for Blind Baking a pie crust, but continue to bake for an additional 5-10 minutes until the bottom of the crust is completely baked and lightly golden--keep the pie shield on (baking time will vary depending on the thickness of your crust and the pie tin you use). I prefer to bake my pie shells with the pie weights in them the whole time to avoid shrinkage.