A simple, all-butter crust for a sweet or savory pie!
- 3 cups flour
- 20 tbsp salted butter (cold, cubed or sliced)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- Ice water as needed, start with 1/4-1/2 cup
Mix the sugar and salt onto the flour. Then toss the butter pieces into the flour mixture, coating them. Smash the butter pieces with your hands and keep tossing to recoat with flour. Alternate smashing and tossing to coat with flour. Work the mixture with your hands to even the texture out to sandy crumbs with some larger pieces of butter (about the size of a pea). Note: You don’t want the butter to melt, so if it starts getting soft, pause for a bit and put the whole mixture into the fridge or freezer to cool it down.
Once you have an even texture through out and no large pieces of butter, begin drizzling in the ice water (no ice cubes!) and mix it in with a fork. You only want to add a little at a time and only enough so that the mixture just barely holds together. Once you can get some of the mixture into a loose ball, remove it from the bowl and set it aside. Continue to drizzle with ice water, mix with a fork and loosely bring together the remaining crumbs and flour in the bowl until there is none left.
Gather your loose dough into a mound and compress it a little to bring it together. This recipe makes 2 pie crusts, so use a bench scraper or knife to divide the dough into 2 portions. I like to use a kitchen scale to make sure it is even.
Next lay out a long sheet of plastic wrap and put half of the dough on the wrap. Form it into a rough puck shape, about an inch thick. Bring the plastic wrap up around it snuggly. Use a rolling pin to flatten the wrapped dough portion which will help all of the flour hydrate as it rests in the fridge. Do the same with the 2nd portion. Put both into the fridge to chill for about an hour. Then roll out and use as desired.
Note: This pie dough can also be frozen for future use, just defrost in the fridge overnight before rolling out.
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