Making the Perfect Pie Crust

Once you get the hang of it, it's as easy as, uh, pie!

All of the anal-retentive suggestions you have ever heard about pie crust are true, because pie dough is a very special kind of dough. It isn't hard to achieve, once you know what you're going for and why, but pie crust can still intimidate a lot of people. That's why less is better than more, and cold is better than warm. Colder and quicker are the watchwords with pie crust.

The Equipment
I don't own a food processor, but if I did, I would use it to make pie dough. Why? Because the faster you mix the cold ingredients and the less you work it the better. Before electric appliances, butter was cut in using fingers, knives or a lovely little device called a pastry cutter, my previous tool of choice.

Deluxe Butter Double Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup cold butter, cut in small pieces 1/4 cup shortening 6 to 8 Tbls ice cold water
Chill your fat and water! This is essential.
Cut your fat into small pieces and add to your measured flour and salt (and sugar, if you use it). There is usually a little over twice as much flour as fat (by volume). Cut the fat in quickly, either with two knives, a pastry cutter or by pulsing in a food processor or blender. Your mixture should resemble coarse meal. Bigger lumps of fat are just fine; aim for pea-sized at biggest. (If you're using the The Joy of Cooking recipe above, cut in the butter first, then cut in the shortening.) By making a flat disk at this point you make it a little easier to roll out. A round ball would be harder to get into a nice flat piece of rolled out pastry.
Even this amount of activity has activated the gluten in the wheat (great if you're making bread, not so great when you're making pie crust). And you want it to relax before you roll it out. It is even recommended that you let rolled-out dough relax before you bake it. I do this when I have time, or am prebaking a pie shell. Sometimes dough gets too hard in the refrigerator. If this happens to you, let it warm up a little (15 or 20 minutes) on the counter before you roll it out.

Roll Out!
If the dough splits, just push it back together. It doesn't need to be perfectly round, just large enough to fit your pan. The recipe I have makes a generous amount and you don't need to worry about the edges, they just get cut off. In fact, the double crust recipe will make an additional single crust if I save all the scraps, which I have done on occasion.
Into the Pan
Now that you have your crust rolled out, bring your pie plate near your work surface, carefully fold the dough in half, pick it up and lay across the plate. [If you're using the wax paper method, carefully remove the top layer of paper, lie the dough on the pie plate and carefully remove the bottom layer of paper.--Ed.]

Open the dough up and gently work it into the plate. If it tears or splits, just pinch it together again, or use scraps to repair any holes. I probably still roll my dough out a little on the thick side because I want to prevent too much leakage with the fruit pies (it makes such a mess) and it is easier to crimp the edge if I have something to hold onto. Fortunately this crust is so tasty that even thick edges are delicious. Also, because it really is just my husband and I, the pie is apt to be around for a few days and I don't want the crust to get too soggy, something a very thin crust would do pretty quickly.
Crimp the edges either with a fork or by pinching around the edge with your fingers; your recipe may tell you to wait until you add the top crust for this step. If you're making a two-crust pie, roll out the second disk of dough in the same way and follow the recipe for your particular pie.