Desserts
Best-Ever Pie Crust
At the heart of every good pie is a great crust. After testing dozens of recipes in our Test Kitchen, we found this pastry to be the best. The combination of three different fats creates a tender, flaky, flavorful, and baker-friendly crust. You may want to eat it just by itself. And be sure to check out our how-to video on blind baking.
Ingredients
This recipe makes one single crust, but it can easily be doubled. To use with recipes where the crust is not prebaked, shape and chill crust but don't bake.
Instructions
Pulse flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor to combine. Add cream cheese, butter, and shortening; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water; pulse until dough forms around the blade. Wrap dough in plastic wrap, pressing dough into the shape of a disk. Refrigerate dough at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.
Coat a 9-inch pie plate with nonstick spray.
Roll dough on a lightly floured work surface into a 14-inch circle about 1/4-inch thick. Flip dough over to prevent sticking, dusting it lightly with flour as needed.
Fold dough into quarters, then unfold into prepared pie plate. Adjust dough to fit, pressing it lightly against the bottom and sides of the plate. Try not to stretch dough.
Trim overhang to 1 inch, turn under, then crimp edges. Chill shaped pie crust until it’s cold and firm, at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 400° with rack in lowest position. Line chilled crust with foil, pressing foil firmly against sides of crust and gently folding foil over edge of pie plate; fill with dried beans or rice.
Blind-bake crust until set but not browned, 18–20 minutes. Carefully unfold foil at edges; lift out foil and dried beans. Return crust to oven; bake until pastry is pale golden, about 5 minutes. Remove crust from oven.
Pulse the pastry ingredients in a food processor until the mixture looks like coarse meal.
For the flakiest pastry crust, be sure the water you add to the dough is ice cold.
Blind-baking is prebaking a crust. You can reuse beans to blind-bake another crust but not for cooking.
Nutritional Facts
Nutritional Facts
Per 1/8 crust
Calories: 173
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 11g 16%
Saturated Fat 6g 30%
Cholesterol 23mg 7%
Sodium 95mg 3%
Carbs 16g 5%
Fiber 0g 0%
Protein 2g
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.