Best All Purpose Pie Dough Recipes

ALL-PURPOSE EASY SHORTENING PIE DOUGH

Steps:

• Combine the flour and salt in a medium bowl.
• Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening until the mixture is crumbly, with a few pea-sized pieces of shortening.
• Sprinkle in the water and mix with a fork, adding just enough until the mixture is moistened and begins to clump together.
• Gather up the dough and form into a flat disk.
• You can use this dough immediately or proceed to the next step.
• Wrap the dough in wax paper or plastic wrap.
• Refrigerate for atleast 20 minutes or up to overnight.
• If chilled until hard, let the dough stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes to soften slightly before rolling.
• ********Double-CrustShortening Pie Dough*********.
• Use all-purpose flour, salt, vegetable shortening and ice-cold water.
• Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces.

ALL-PURPOSE PIE DOUGH

Steps:

• Using your fingertips or the pulse function of a food processor, blend together the flour, fats and salt until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. There should be pebbles of butter throughout the mixture.
• Add egg yolk and vinegar to 1/4 cup ice water and stir to combine. Drizzle 4 tablespoons of this mixture over the dough and gently stir or pulse to combine. Gather a golfball-size bit of dough and squeeze to combine. If it does not hold together, add a little more of the liquid and stir or pulse, then check again. Repeat as necessary.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gather together into a rough ball. You want to be careful not to overwork the flour, but not too careful; the dough should hold together. Divide the ball in half with a knife or a pastry scraper, then divide each portion in half again, and again, to create eight portions. Using the heel of your hand, flatten each portion of dough once or twice to expand the pebbles of butter, then gather the dough together again in one ball. Divide this ball in half.
• Flatten each ball into a 5- or 6-inch disc and dust lightly with flour. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 60 minutes.

ALL-PURPOSE PIE DOUGH-PâTE BRISéE FINE

Steps:

• Drop the flours, salt, and butter in to the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse 5 or 6 times in 1/2-second bursts to break up the butter. Then add the shortening, turn on the machine, and immediately pour in the ice water, pulsing 2 or 3 times. Remove cover and observe the dough, which will look like a mass of smallish lumps and should just hold in a mass when a handful is pressed together. If too dry, pulse in droplets more water.
• Turn dough out onto your work surface, and with the heel of your hand rapidly and roughly push egg-size blobs out in front of you in 6-inch smears. Gather the dough into a relatively smooth cake; wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days), or you may freeze it for several months.
• SWEET DOUGH FOR DESSERT TARTS. Use the same formula, but cut the salt down to 1/4 teaspoon and include 2 tablespoons sugar.
• Dough with a high fat content like this one softens quickly at room temperature and becomes difficult if not impossible to work with. Whenever this happens to you, stop where you are and refrigerate it for 20 minutes. To make things easier for me, I bought a marble slab that now lives in the refrigerator; I take out that chilled slab and use it as a work surface any time I'm doing a dough.
• Bake your tart shell in a bottomless buttered flan ring set on a buttered pastry sheet, or in a false-bottomed cake pan or fluted pan, or on a buttered upside-down pie plate or cake pan. Or you can fashion a free-form shell on a buttered pastry sheet.

ALL-PURPOSE PIE DOUGH

Steps:

• Stir sugar, vinegar, and 2 Tbsp. hot water in a small measuring glass to dissolve sugar. Add 1/3 cup ice water and stir to melt ice; chill in freezer until very cold, about 10 minutes (do not let it freeze).
• Pulse flour, butter, and salt in a food processor until largest pieces of butter are pea-size. Turn out onto a work surface and, using the heel of your hand, smash butter into flour to flatten. Working quickly, continue smashing butter into flour until mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse meal. Gather into a mound and make a well in the center. Pour in sugar mixture, using your fingertips to slowly incorporate into flour; work in until only a few dry spots remain. Knead until no dry spots remain and dough holds together when pressed.
• Divide dough in half, flatten into disks, and wrap each in plastic. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours.
• Do Ahead
• Dough can be made 3 days ahead. Keep chilled, or freeze up to 1 month.

ALL-PURPOSE PIE DOUGH

Steps:

• Using your fingertips or the pulse function of a food processor, blend together the flour, fats and salt until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. There should be pebbles of butter throughout the mixture.
• Add egg yolk and vinegar to 1/4 cup ice water and stir to combine. Drizzle 4 tablespoons of this mixture over the dough and gently stir or pulse to combine. Gather a golfball-size bit of dough and squeeze to combine. If it does not hold together, add a little more of the liquid and stir or pulse, then check again. Repeat as necessary.
• Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gather together into a rough ball. You want to be careful not to overwork the flour, but not too careful; the dough should hold together. Divide the ball in half with a knife or a pastry scraper, then divide each portion in half again, and again, to create eight portions. Using the heel of your hand, flatten each portion of dough once or twice to expand the pebbles of butter, then gather the dough together again in one ball. Divide this ball in half.
• Flatten each ball into a 5- or 6-inch disc and dust lightly with flour. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 60 minutes.