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Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Old Fashioned Butter Pie Crust


Back in September we went to visit my Grandparents who live on Vancouver Island.  We arrived right at the tail end of harvesting season so my Gramps and I decided to visit some orchards and pick some apples. Well, needless to say one thing led to another and before you know it there was just over 200 lbs of freshly picked apples, pears, and squash in the back of my car, all ready to be made into something delicious.  As you can imagine, the next few weeks were filled with apple everything.  I made apple crisp, apple sauce, pear sauce, apple butter, and many, many apple pies


 The thing about having over 100 lbs of apples is that by the end of it, you get pretty darn good at making pie. 

My go to crust for throughout this entire ordeal was this old fashioned all butter pie crust.  It's simple, it only calls for 3 ingredients, and honestly it makes for a pretty darn great tasting crust.  It rolls out beautifully, makes for a flaky pie crust, and browns just the right amount in the oven. 

PS - If you're local, be sure to check the "Classes" tab at the top of this page to sign up for this month's pie making class using this crust!  


Recipe Makes 4 Crusts
Ingredients
- 5 cups flour
- 1 lb butter (4 sticks), cold*
- 1 cup ice cold water
* Note: Butter must be VERY cold, but not frozen.  For best results, make sure butter has been refrigerated for at least 2-3 hours first. 
Directions
Place flour in a bowl. 
Cut butter into small cm size pieces, and place in flour. 
Mix butter with hands, pinching each piece to incorporate into the flour.  Do this until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs (about 2-3 minutes).   Alternatively you can use a pastry cutter or knife, but I find this method is not only more hands on (ha!) it also makes for more buttery pockets in the crust. 
Slowly pour water into flour/butter mixture, about 1/4 cup at a time.  You might not use all of the water, or you might use slightly more.  Once the mixture reaches a dough like consistency and can be rolled into a ball without being crumbly, it's ready. 
Cut ball into 4 equal size pieces, and shape into a disk.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2-4 hours (or overnight) for best results. 
You can freeze the dough as well, simply add disks to a freezer bag, and allow to defrost in the fridge overnight (or 2-3 hours on the counter) before using.
Use as recipe directs! 

Enjoy! 

2 comments:

  1. Silly question: Before using the finished pie crust to make an apple pie I should refrigerate it for 2-4 hours minimum first? So make, roll out and then refrigerate?

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    Replies
    1. Not a silly question at all! I generally refrigerate the dough, roll out, then immediately bake the pie, but you can definitely refrigerate it once the pie is assembled as well! In fact most dough works best refrigerated first so this would probably do more good than harm. :)

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