pie crust
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While few desserts are as lovely as a golden crusted, lattice-topped pie, few things are as daunting as the idea of making that crust. But it's really, truly not that difficult. No matter what recipe you like to use, the basic framework is simply flour, salt, fat, and ice water. A few whirs of the food processor take much of the time and guesswork out of blending the flour and fat. To achieve a crust that has both the flavor of butter and the flakiness imparted by vegetable shortening, use a combination of three-quarters butter to one-quarter shortening. Keeping the butter and shortening cold throughout the entire process is crucial if you want a flaky crust, so make sure all of your ingredients – fat, water, even eggs – are really cold (it's even fine if the fat is frozen) and to chill your finished dough for at least an hour after it's been mixed and for 30 minutes after it's been fitted into the pan.
1

Place your dry ingredients in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse just to combine the ingredients: the point here it to ensure that everything is evenly distributed.
2

Next, add the butter and shortening. The goal is to cut the fat into the dry ingredients as quickly and thoroughly as possible: take too long, and the fat will get warm, which will make the dough difficult to work with. Additionally, overprocessing will result in a crumbly, rather than flaky, dough. On the flip side, processing it too little will yield a shrunken, tough crust. The trick is to blend the fat and dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse sand, with butter pieces no bigger than small peas.
3

After the fat and dry ingredients have been combined, add the ice water. The less water added, the more tender the finished crust will be. Add the water very gradually, pulsing in the food processor after each addition. Process just until the dough is evenly moistened and forms clumps, and sticks together when pinched.
4

After the dough has been formed, turn it out onto a work surface, form it into a disk, wrap it in plastic, and chill it thoroughly in the refrigerator, at least 1 hour. The colder it is, the easier it will be to roll.
5

Roll out dough, with just a dusting of flour on the work surface – if you use too much flour, the dough will absorb it and become tough. Alternatively, you can roll it between a slipcover, two sheets of waxed paper, or two sheets of plastic wrap. Roll the dough from the center out, rotating it by an eighth with each roll to maintain an even circle. Be sure to have a buttered pie plate or pan ready. Roll out the dough to a wide enough diameter to ensure that you'll have some overhang once it's in the pan.
6

Fit the dough into the pan. Trim the overhang with scissors to 1/4 to 1/2 inch and either fold it under itself or crimp, pinch, or flute it for a more decorative look.
7

Refrigerate the crust for a half hour while preheating the oven. The point of chilling it this second time is to allow the gluten in the dough to relax. Gluten is the protein formed when liquid is added to flour. Strands of gluten give baked goods their elasticity, and if they're not given time to relax after being worked and rolled, they will cause the dough to shrink.
8

There are two stages to baking the crust. For the first, line the dough with buttered aluminum foil and fill with either pie weights or rice or dried beans. Bake it just until the dough has turned white and started to brown around the edges, about 25 minutes. When this happens, it means that the dough is set and can hold its shape once a filling has been added. For the second stage of baking, remove the foil and beans, rice, or weights, and bake the dough for another several minutes, until the crust is lightly colored. At this point, you can add your filling, and bake according to instructions.