Pie Crust

[Piglet posted this to her Dreamwidth page in October.]

Because I can’t find anything unless it’s online: my pie crust formula. Makes one bottom crust.

1 stick of butter (1/4 pound)
180 grams (1 1/2 cups) flour
salt [a pinch]
sugar [1/2 tsp]
~6 Tablespoons ice water, dash of vinegar optional

Cut butter into salted, sugared flour (I use a pastry cutter; it is the bomb-diggity). Stir in ice water until dough starts to form.

Do not a) add too much water or b) over-knead.

Press into disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.

Roll out the crust using a floured surface and rolling pin, then transfer to a pie plate.

[Edited to add a few comments: -MSRC]

Double the recipe if you’re making a top crust.

If you use a food processor instead of a manual pastry cutter, this process goes even faster, you can easily do a double-recipe batch at the same time, and it seems like you might be able to get the dough to come together without using as much water, perhaps as little as 4 Tbsp (1/4 cup).

This crust works great for both sweet and savory pies. If desired, you could add more sugar to a crust for a sweet pie; some recipes call for as much as 1 Tbsp, six times the amount in this recipe, but we like a bit of contrast between the crust and the sweetness of the filling.