Pie crust

A beautiful Pie crust is essential for pies (ofcourse :) ), tarts, quiche and many more. So here is how I made pie crust for my preparations. This makes crust for about 6-7 inch tin.

Ingredients:

1. 100 gms all purpose flour (maida)

2. 40 gms unsalted plain butter (I use fat free butter)

3. 10 gms shortening ( लोणी (loni) , मक्खन (makkhan)

4. 1-2 tsp. cold water

5. 1/4 tsp salt

6. 1 Egg white 

Method:

For a good pie crust, butter and shortening must be cold, so keep it in refrigerator until you gather all required ingredients. 

First put all purpose flour and salt in whisking bowl and give a little whisk to mix them well (I use small mixy)

Now cut butter in small cubes and mix in above mixture, now blend them together in pulsating action,

we don't need to keep it spinning in mixy. Dough should like coarse not fine paste.

Now add shortening to mixture and again blend together in pulsating action.

Now add 1 tsp water into mixture and give little spin, please note that we don't want to make dough in a fine paste, we just need enough water so that mixture will hold together when pressed by hands. Add more water if needed. As per my experience you need total 1 and 1/2 tsp water only, but it can change depending on flour you use. 

Press mixture by hand to make sure it holds, if it does then its done.

Now kneed mixture into small ball and then press it round shape, cover with plastic/aluminium and refrigerate it for about 30 minutes.

Now we are ready to roll out and bake our pie crust.

Take out dough from refrigerator and put it on flat surface. Use more flour so that dough won't stick to surface. Now rollout dough neatly in round shape, just a inch more than diameter of your baking tin. Use more flour to prevent dough from sticking to surface.

Make sure to lightly grease your baking tin by either dusting with flour or 

Now carefully lift rolled out dough on rolling pin and carefully place on your baking tin and with lightly pressed it against tin. Put this in refrigerator untill oven is preheated. 

Pre-heat oven to 200 degree Celsius, once oven reaches to this temperature; take out baking tin from refrigerator and put on flat surface. Gently puncture pie using fork as we don't want pie crust to rise once it starts baking.

Put a slightly greased parchment/butter pepper on tin and fill it with pie weights (beans/rice/washed sand (dry)), so that pie crust won't rise as it bakes and retain its shape and does not sogg down from tin's edge.

Put tin in oven and bake it for about 10 minutes or till edges of pastry start browning. 

Remove from oven and remove parchment/butter paper and pie weights.

Reduce oven temperature to 180 degree Celsius and bake for 5-10 minutes more, pie crust should be ready now.

I prefer to brush pie crust with egg white, so that egg whites seals any cavity/punctures/holes in pie crust. This helps pie crust to go soggy when we pour pie mixture in it later. If you apply egg whites then bake it for another 2-3 minutes so that it shall seal pie crust properly.

Our pie crust is ready, you can use it once its cooled down. You can refrigerate it for 2-3 days or keep it frozen as well. Make sure you covered in properly before refrigerating it.