Before you start making this perfectly flaky vegan pie crust, it's best to have all of your ingredients and equipment ice cold. A half hour before you begin, put your ingredients, mixing tools and rolling pin in the freezer. I use a food processor to make the crust, but you could also use a traditional, hand-held pastry blender. If you're making a rectangular tart, instead of a pie, roll your dough out to a 11 x 16-inch rectangle in step #3. And naturally, you'll be using a rimmed baking sheet instead of a pie pan.
Perfectly Flaky Pie Crust
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 2 - 9" pie crusts 1x
Ingredients
- 2 ½ c. unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. sugar
- ½ tsp. salt
- ½ c. non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening
- ½ c. Earth Balance
- ⅓ c. + 1 tbsp. ice water
Instructions
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Pulse to blend. Add the butter and shortening. Pulse to blend, until mixture resembles a coarse meal with the largest pieces no bigger than a pea. With the processor running, slowly add the the water, processing just until clumps start to form. If you stop the processor and squeeze a clump of dough together, it should hold together. If it's too dry, continue to add water, 1 teaspoon at a time.
- Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface. Gather it together and form into two equal balls. Press the balls gently into disks, smoothing the edges and pinching any cracks together. Wrap the disks in plastic wrap, and smooth a little more once they're wrapped. Refrigerate your dough for at least 2 hours, up to several days. You can also freeze your dough and store it for up to a few months. If you do freeze it, be sure to thaw it overnight before using it.
- Before rolling out your dough, allow it to soften slightly at room temperature. Usually 15 minutes does the job. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out in a circular pattern, pushing out from the center. Roll the dough to be 3 or 4 inched larger diameter than your pie pan. You can place you pan upside down on your dough to see where you're at.
- To transfer your dough to the pie pan, you can ever so gently fold in in half, and then in half again. Gently pick it up and lay it over your pan and very gently unfold. You can also gently roll the dough onto your rolling pin and unroll it over the pie plate. Once your crust is in place, you can repair any cracks or holes with extra dough and some pinching. Trim the edge to ¾ inch over the edge of your pie plate. You can get fancy here and make some pinchey designs or keep it clean and simple.
- Almost there! Now chill your beautiful crust in the refrigerator for another half hour (up to 24 hours). This keeps the dough from shrinking too much in the oven. Then just bake according to your recipe instructions.
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