joy's pie crust

Everyone has their own pie crust recipe sometimes with various exotic ingredients, vodka, shortening, etc.  But this is my tried and true, although I guess not so tried and true since I keep messing with the wheat to white flour ratio.  So I'll give the starter one and then tell you what I've recently been happy with.

basic pie crust (for bottom + shell)*
ingredients
     2 cups flour
     12 Tbsp butter**
     1 tsp salt
     cold water (maybe 7 Tbsp?)

*if you want to just make a bottom shell use 3/4 of the ingredients
** however, if you have any wheat flour in your pie crust, you probably need less butter, so for just a bottom pie crust I use 8 Tbsp of butter.



To be fair, I've stopped measuring the salt and the water and have just been going by texture.  I also think if you've never made a pie crust before and are feeling intimidated, make a couple, "mess it up", eat it, make adjustments and then you'll have a perfect pie crust in no time.  No one ever thinks 12 tbsp butter + flour = a bad time.  Unless of course you are allergic to either of those ingredients.  sorry!

making pie crust

• Mix flour and salt together, I use whatever I have in my hand but whisking is often most satisfying for me.  
• cut butter into flour.  There's a few different ways to do this, you can use the food processor (super easy), a pastry knife (also super easy), but for some reason, I like to do it by hand.  You want the butter to be cold so leave it in the fridge (some people freeze it) until right before you need it.  You also want to work it with your hands as little as possible, so I cut the butter into 1/2 tbsp chunks before putting them in the flour.  Then I smush the butter and the flour between the thumb and my other fingers on each hand until the the mixture looks like cornmeal where the biggest chunk of butter should be smaller than a ball bearing.  Another indicator is that when you press a handful of it it holds its shape firmly.
• Add in water a tablespoon at a time.  For the first couple of tablespoons, stir with a fork (again to minimize the time you spend manhandling the dough).  then the next couple of tablespoons, mix using your hands.  I do this weird kind of throwing like action against the side of the bowl and I'll typically turn out the dough when it seems like it's barely sticking together in one cohesive ball when smushed together.
• Turn out dough onto some floured flat surface.  If you are doing a shell separate your dough into two balls, one maybe 1/3 bigger than the other.  Flour your rolling pin and roll out your bigger dough ball until it'll fit your pie pan (for me the crust will be around 1/4" thick). 
• Transfer bottom crust to your pie pan.  There's a number of ways to do it, I fold mine in half and then in half again and transfer that way, others drape the crust over the rolling pin.  
• Don't worry if your crust has holes after the transfer, I have always patched mine with the extra bits of dough and it's always been delicious.  
• If you have a shell, roll that out and place it over your filling, making sure to cut vent holes!
• If you do not have a shell and are pre-cooking your crust before putting the filling in, remember to use a fork and make holes ALL OVER the crust.  super important.  otherwise you will get bubbles everywhere!
• bake as directed,

ingredients for whole wheat + white flour pie crust:
    2/3 c. whole wheat flour
    1 1/3 c. wheat flour
    everything else remains the same.  woohoo!