Forgiving Pie Crust

Our Favorite: Forgiving Pie Crust 

I used this recipe for my Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.  I will admit, the results were probably the flakiest pie crust I ever made.  My mother would have taken the prize in that category!

Prep: 20 minutes
Chill: 1 hour
Yield: enough for a double crust 10-inch pie
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, very cold
1/2 cup transfat-free vegetable shortening, frozen
Directions:
Put flour, sugar and salt into a food processor. Pulse to mix well. Cut butter and shortening into small pieces and sprinkle them over the flour mixture. Use on/off pulses with the food processor to blend the fats into the flour. The mixture will look like coarse crumbs.

Put ice cubes into about 1/2 cup water and let the water chill. Remove the ice cubes and drizzle about 6 tablespoons of the ice water over the flour mixture. Briefly pulse the machine just until the mixture gathers into a dough.

Dump the mixture out onto a sheet of wax paper. Gather into two balls, one slightly larger than the other. Flatten the balls into thick disks. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. (Dough will keep in the refrigerator for several days.)