This recipe makes a two-crust pastry enough for a 10″ pan.

 

  1. Cut butter into flour and salt until particles are size of small peas.
  2. Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with fork (I prefer to use my hand) until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans side of bowl (1 to 2 teaspoons water can be added if necessary). Do not over-knead.
  3. Gather pastry into a circle (flattened with the palm of your hand) and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  4. Pre-heat oven to 210C.
  5. Shape pastry into flattened round on lightly floured slab. If you want to avoid using flour, use parchment paper to avoid the pastry from sticking to the rolling pin.
  6. Roll pastry 2 inches larger than inverted pie plate with floured rolling pin (use an 8-9 inch wide pan that’s an inch deep).
  7. When rolling out pastry, keep circular by occasionally pushing edge in gently with sides of hands.
  8. Fold pastry into quarters (don’t flatten or it’ll stick, just want to loosely place edges together to fold it twice into a quarter circle).
  9. Place in pie plate with point in center. Unfold and gently ease into plate, being careful not to stretch pastry.
  10. At this point you can either blind bake the pastry or add the filling and then bake it.

Notes:

  • For an 8-9″ pan change ingredient proportions to: 2/3 cup + 2 tbsp butter, 2 cups plain flour, 3/4 tsp salt, 4-5 tbsp cold water.