Mom's Pie Crust Recipe

Can easily work in a 9” pie tin as well as the tart pan.

My pie crust recipe is for 3 single 9”-10” crusts or 2, 9” double pie crusts. It’s hard to scale to a single crust recipe due to the egg, but you can save unused crusts frozen tightly wrapped in plastic. Just allow an hour or more out of the freezer before rolling.

Hardware

Ingredients

Procedure

Act I

  1. Mix in a cup:
    • 1 egg
    • 1 Tbsp white vinegar
    • 4 Tbsp very cold water
  2. Mix in Cuisinart with metal blade:
    • 3 cups flour
    • 1 tsp salt
  3. Add half the butter cubes, and run 5–6 seconds until pea-sized lumps.
  4. Add rest of butter cubes and pulse 4 times (1 second pulses).
  5. Add wet ingredient mixture and pulse just until ingredients are clumping together and becoming a cohesive dough. Don’t overprocess.
  6. Turn onto lightly floured surface and shape into a log. Cut into number of crusts desired: 3 single or 2 double crust pies (top crusts will use slightly less dough).
  7. Flatten each piece into a 3/4” disc shape and wrap those not being used immediately in plastic and chill. I have good luck rolling this crust without chilling first. If you do chill before rolling, allow dough to rest outside of fridge at least 30 min. Frozen dough must be thoroughly thawed before rolling! You may also roll single crusts now and freeze in tins, inside freezer bags.

Act II

Have dusting flour ready for rolling pin and surface. Less time, handling, and added flour = a more tender crust.

Use a light touch with the rolling pin, turning the dough 1/4 turn so that you are always rolling from center away from you. Add flour to pin and rolling surface only as needed.

Roll to 1/8” thickness and fold in half to lift into the pie tin, Pyrex pie dish or tart pan. Trim any dough in excess of 1” over the edge of your dish. Tuck 1” under to form the rim and flute as desired. Chill the dough in the pan while you make the filling.