Yield: 1 pie shell
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups (6 1/4 ounces/177 g) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon (12 g) sugar
- 3 tablespoons (42 g) vegetable shortening, chilled
- 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick/57 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
- 4-5 tablespoons ice water
Instructions
- Pulse the flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor until combined. Add the shortening and pulse until the mixture has the texture of course sand. Add the butter pieces to the flour mixture and pulse the butter into the flour. The mixture should be a pale yellow and contain butter bits the size of small peas. Place the mixture into a medium-sized bowl.
- Sprinkle four tablespoons of the ice water over the mixture. With a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix. Press down on the dough with the broad side of the spatula until the dough sticks together, adding up to one tablespoon more ice water if the dough will not come together. Flatten the dough into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least one hour before rolling.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface into a 12-inch circle. Transfer the dough to a nine-inch pie pan. Working around the perimeter of the pan, guide the dough into the pan corners by lifting the edge of the dough with on hand while pressing into the pan bottom with the other hand. Trim the dough edges to extend about half an inch beyond the rim of the pan. Fold the overhang under itself; flute the dough or press the tines of a fork against the dough to flatten it against the rim of the pie plate. Refrigerate until firm about 40 minutes, then freeze for at least 20 minutes.
- Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 375°. Remove from the freezer, line with plastic wrap and fill with pie weights, make sure not plastic is touching the pie pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap and weights by gathering the corners of the plastic wrap and pulling up and out. For a partially baked crust, continue baking five to six minutes more; for a fully baked crust continue baking 12 more minutes.