This is my favourite pie pastry recipe that I use for sweet or savoury (omit sugar) pies. I use butter (for flavour) and shortening (for flakiness). Makes one double crust pie, two shells or two galettes. This pastry also works well for the pie pastry cut outs/cookies. Keeping ingredients cold and chilling the dough for at least an hour after mixing will help create a flaky crust.
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Resting Time1 hourhr
Total Time1 hourhr15 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: pie, pie crust, pie pastry
Servings: 2pie shells
Calories: 1391kcal
Author: Katie Anderson
Ingredients
2 1/2cupsall-purpose flour
1/2tspsalt
1Tbspgranulated sugar
1/3cupcold buttercubed
1/2cupshorteningcubed
1Tbspvinegar
6-8Tbspice cold water
Instructions
In large, chilled bowl, mix flour, salt and sugar.
Cut in butter and shortening until crumbly with peas size bits of butter still left. Use a pastry cutter, two knives or your hands.
Mix vinegar with 1 cup of water and ice. From this, measure 6 Tbsp of water and pour over flour. Mix with fork just until ingredients come together. Add more water as needed to roughly bring dough together. Add a little at a time to avoid making dough too sticky or wet.
Turn onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a ball while being careful not to work the dough too much. Cut the ball into equal halves and lay each on a large piece of plastic wrap. Wrap the halves with plastic wrap and squish to make flat, round discs. Refrigerate for 1 hour or longer.
Keep dough in fridge for up to 3 days or wrap and freeze well for up to 6 months.
Notes
I use a combination of shortening and butter to get extra flakiness from the shortening and great buttery flavour from the butter. This recipe makes two 9" pie shells. For pumpkin pie, use one shell for the pie and one shell for the cut outs.Pro tip: Pie dough will keep in the freezer for a couple months—wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in a sealed freezer bag for best results. When you’re ready to make another pie, simply allow it to defrost in the refrigerator, then proceed with rolling it out as instructed above.Avoid melting or disintegrating the small butter pieces and developing the gluten in the flour by using cold ingredients, cooling the dough before rolling and handling the dough gently and minimally.For a savoury version, omit sugar and consider adding 1/4 tsp garlic powder and 1 tsp finely minced dried herbs like thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary. Match the herbs to the ingredients in your filling.Makes two 9" pie shells or one double crust