Basic Butter Pie Dough

The dough comes together easily with just a little effort and can be made in advance so it’s waiting for you when you are ready. The resulting crust is all butter, flaky and easily adapted for flavorings and spices.

Author

Helen Park

Servings

Yield one 9" round pie shell

Category

Sweet

Appetizer

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cup all purpose flour (150g)
• ¼ tsp fine sea salt
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 8 Tbsp unsalted butter, very cold and cut into cubes
• 2-4 Tbsp ice water (30-60g)

Directions

1. Using a food processor, pulse the flour, sea salt, and baking powder together to combine.
2. Add the butter and keep pulsing until the flour resembles wet sand with small pea-size or smaller lumps of butter.
3. Pulse in one tablespoon of ice water at a time. After adding two spoonfuls of water, check by opening the lid and trying to clump the mix together in your hand. If it’s still too dry, add another tablespoon of water and pulse again. If it’s just barely holding together, move onto the next step.
4. To form the dough, lay a big square of plastic wrap down onto your work surface and deposit the crumbly mixture into the center. 
5. Gather the corner and sides of the plastic and push the dough into the center,  flattening to form a disk. This brings the dough together without overworking the mix or risking any melting from too much warm hand contact.
6. As you bring the plastic in to the center to form the disk, make sure to press out excess air.
7. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour, or up to two days, to give the dough time to rest and the flour (and any spices) time to hydrate.
8. While getting ready to roll out your crust, take your dough out and let it come up to a rollable temperature.