Recipe of the week: Basic pie dough for sweet and hearty pies

Recipe of the week

With a basic recipe for pie dough laying around you'll be prepared for anything.... well, in regard to cravings for pie anyway. This is a versatile dough which can be used for all sorts of pies and pastries. You can make tiny pies, large pies, sugary pies or quiche! It's a perfect beginner's dough because it's easy to make and roll, and it doesn't have a lot of ingredients to it. It also has to rest, very important for dough by the way so don't skip that part! But while it's resting you have time to eat something healthy and if you decide your hunkering for pie has past, no worries, just freeze the dough. And next time your cravings start acting up again you can just pop that out the freezer and get right to making one of those yummy pies ;)


Basic pie dough for sweet and hearty pies 
(enough for a 10 inch pie shell)

Ingredients

- 250 grams flour
- 150 grams cold butter in cubes
- 1 egg yoke
- 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 1/2 tablespoons ice cold water

- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Optional:
- 2 tablespoons sugar for sweet dough

Put a bit of water and some ice cubes in a bowl and set aside. If you don't have ice cubes just put something else out of your fridge in a clean bag and hang that in the bowl.

Mix the flour, salt and if using the sugar in a large bowl. Add the cubes of butter to the bowl and rub the mixture between your fingers till you get a bread crumb consistency and no large pieces of butter remain.

Whisk the egg with the lemon and water.
Make a dent in the flour mixture and add the liquids. Stir with a fork until everything starts to stick together. Now use your hand to knead the dough until everything is incorporated. Don't over knead it or the dough will become tough. Make a ball of the dough and wrap it tightly in plastic wrap.

Put the dough in the fridge for at least 4 hours but better yet an entire night. After that you can roll the dough for large or small pie crusts see How to make an apple pie for tips.

Print out this recipe and put it near your flour, handy ;)

Make it beautiful!