tender and flaky pie crust

This is my favorite pie dough by far. It takes some time, but most of that's just fridge time. It simple, clean, and easy--and, the most important, delicious.

Basic Pie Crust
adapted from Alton Brown's lovely "I'm Just Here for More Food (food x mixing + heat = baking)."

6 Tb salted butter
2 Tb shortening
1 1/4 C flour
cold water

Stash the butter and shortening in the freezer while you step up the food processor. It is important the fats be firm and solid while you form the dough and freezing them gives us a bit of extra insurance.



Put the flour (and a generous pinch of salt, if you're using unsalted butter. I use salted because I'm too lazy to buy more than one type of butter) in the bowl of the food processor. Add the cold butter and pulse 8-10 times. You should have pea-sized bits of flour-coated butter floating around. Add the shortening and pulse a few times more, until the mixture looks like rough bread crumbs.

Get your fingers wet and dash in a few drops of water. Pulse three times. Dash a few more drops of water in. Pulse three times. Keep doing this until the dough forms a ball. Be very careful not to over-water it. Sometimes it will seem too dry, but if you wait a moment, the water will soak in and the dough will roll itself up nicely without any extra water.

Wrap the dough, which should be fairly soft, in plastic wrap and stash in the fridge for at least a half hour. This solidifies the fats and also gives the starch a chance to soak up the water and relax. Meanwhile, stash two pie tins and a cookie sheet in your freezer (this is more insurance for later). Leave the dough in the fridge until about an hour and a half or more before you want the quiche piping hot and ready.

AB recommends using a large ziplock bag instead of two sheets of plastic wrap like I am going to, but I didn't have any ziplocks available. (This was a spur-of-the-moment quiche crust). I do recommend ziplocks over plastic wrap, though, because there're a little simpler.

Unwrap the cold dough on top of the cookie sheet you stashed in the freezer. Cut a second piece of plastic wrap and lay it over top.

Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough into a large, thin, circle. The easiest way I know to do this is to roll straight away from yourself, and turn the cookie sheet a little before each roll.

Put one frozen pie tin face up in the center of the pie dough. (Grease the inside of the other.)

Carefully flip the cookie sheet, dough, and tin over. Remove the cookie sheet. Peel off the bottom (now top) layer of plastic wrap.

Lay the greased pie tin face down onto the dough.

 Flip the tin, dough, and tin over. Remove the first tin (presently on top).

Trim the edges of the dough. Dock the dough (poke a few holes in the bottom to let steam escape).

Blind bake (bake empty) in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Fill with something delicious.