Makes one 9 or 10 inch pie shell
- 1¼ cup flour
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 8 Tablespoons (1 stick, 4oz) unsalted butter, cut into ⅜ inch cubes (see notes)
- 3-4 Tablespoons ice-cold water
Special equipment
- food processor
Method
- Sift together the dry ingredients and place in the bowl of your food processor. Scatter the butter cubes into the flour, scattering with your fingers or a fork so that they all don’t stick together in a single lump.
Pulse in quick bursts in your food processor until the butter has broken down into the size of half a pea. Do not overmix. It is important that the butter stay intact for flakey dough; otherwise you’ll have a chewy, not flakey, glutenous mass. This may take 10 to 15 pulses.
Now slow add the water through the hopper while pulsing until the mass comes together in a single lump, clean from the sides of the bowl. Wrap in wax paper and cool in the fridge for at least an hour.
Between sheets of wax paper, roll out into the appropriately size disk and line your pie plate. Fill and cook as directed.
Notes
- Unquestionably, this is better when made with 2 oz of lard and 2 oz of butter, but that would render your dessert (or savory) unsuitable for vegetarians. Adjust for your particular diners accordingly.↩
Suggestions
- Substitute 1 Tablespoon of whole wheat flour for an equal amount of white flour for subtle complexity.
Another trick is to substitute vodka for some or all of the water to make an uncannily flakey dough. Vodka provides the moisture you need to form your dough, but because glutens bind with water and not alcohol, the proteins in the resultant dough can never combine, yielding a stunningly flakey pie crust.