All-Butter Single Crust Pie Dough

By norsegal8

Use this recipe for making single-crust pies like pecan or pumpkin. We prefer ceramic or metal pie weights for prebaking the pie shell. If you don’t own any weights, rice or dried beans can stand in, but since they’re lighter than pie weights, be sure to fill up the foil-lined pie shell completely.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional flour for work surface
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), cold, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and frozen for 10 minutes
• 4 teaspoons sour cream
• 3 –4 tablespoons ice water

Preparation

Step 1

1. Process flour, salt, and sugar together in food processor until combined, about 3 seconds. Add butter and pulse until butter is size of large peas, about ten 1-second pulses.

2. Using fork, mix sour cream and 3 tablespoons ice water in small bowl until combined. Add half sour cream mixture to flour mixture; pulse for three 1-second pulses. Repeat with remaining sour cream mixture. Pinch dough with fingers; if dough is floury, dry, and does not hold together, add additional tablespoon water and process until dough forms large clumps and no dry flour remains, three to five 1-second pulses.

3. Turn dough out onto work surface, flatten into 4-inch disk, wrap disk in plastic, and refrigerate until firm but not hard, 1 to 2 hours, before rolling. (Dough can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours but will become rock hard. Let thoroughly chilled dough stand at room temperature for 15 minutes before rolling.)

4. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Roll disk of dough between 2 large sheets parchment paper to 12-inch circle (about 1/8-inch thick). (If dough is soft and/or sticky, refrigerate until firm.) Remove parchment from one side of dough round, flip into 9-inch pie plate; peel off second layer parchment. Working around circumference of pie plate, ease dough into plate by gently lifting the edge of dough with one hand while pressing into plate bottom with other hand. Leave any dough that overhangs lip of pie plate in place; refrigerate dough-lined pie plate until firm, about 30 minutes.

5. Trim overhang to 1/2-inch beyond lip of pie plate. Fold overhang under itself; folded edge should be flush with edge of pie plate. Flute dough or press the tines of a fork against dough to flatten it against rim of pie plate. Refrigerate dough-lined plate until firm, about 15 minutes.

6. Remove dough-lined plate from refrigerator and press doubled 12-inch piece of foil inside shell, folding edge of foil over fluted edges to shield; distribute 2 cups pie weights over foil. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until dough is light in color, then remove foil and weights and continue baking until crust is golden brown, 5 to 10 minutes more. Transfer to wire rack.