Never-Fail Pie Crust with Whole Grain

I’ve been wanting to publish this recipe for years but I never quite got it to where it was ready because of all the changes I made to it. It came from the same book as my sugar cookies and Cowboy Cookies and is always my go-to for regular pie crust. I like this one because it has a lot more flavor than most—it’s not just buttery and flaky, which I don’t really love. 

However, the original recipe was used white flour only and also shortening, neither of which I really use myself even though I know there are versions of shortening out there without any trans fats. I have tried to make it 100% home-milled whole grain flour but, while it works for our family, most people wouldn’t have patience with how much it cracks. And since pie is a special-occasion food for us anyway, there seems no harm in using half all-purpose white flour and half whole-wheat pastry flour.

Because it has no sugar in it, you can use this crust equally for sweet or savory recipes, another thing I love about it. It’s also sturdy enough for hand pies or pasties.

You can certainly making this recipe by hand but I always use my food processor so that’s the instructions I give here. I’ve incorporated the butter/flour mixing technique from Serious Eats into the recipe

INGREDIENTS

180g all-purpose white flour, divided 120g and 60g and mixed with wheat flour 

180g whole-wheat pastry flour, divided 120g and 60g and mixed with white flour

1 tsp salt

225g (1 cup, 2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1 tsp white vinegar

1 egg

4-6 TBSP cold water

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the 120g each of white and wheat flours and salt in the food processor and pulse to combine
2. Add the cubes of butter and pulse approximately 25 times until the mixture is starting to come together into a paste
3. Sprinkle over the remaining 60g each of white and wheat flour (that you’ve premixed) and pulse a few times (about 5 short pulses)
4. Turn the dough into a large bowl
5. Mix the vinegar, egg and 4 TBSP of cold water and stir to break up the egg and combine
6. Using a spatula, fold in the egg/water/vinegar mixture pressing the dough together until it all comes together
7. Divide the dough into as many pieces as you need, flatten into disks and refrigerate for at least two hours. I used 75g for each of my mini pies and had enough left over to make the lids
8. Remove the dough from the fridge 15-30 minutes before you want to roll it out. If you think this is scandalous and you must roll it out straight from the fridge, be my guest

The original recipe said this makes two 2-crust pies but we are not really great with pastry in my family so my mom always split it into 3 instead so we’d have plenty to work with. It freezes very well, wrapped up tightly. 

These little pies are filled with the filling from my Indian Vegetable Bake made vegan by using homemade cashew cream in place of the yogurt and with chickpeas rather than Quorn.