This recipe comes from Betty Harville, mother of Moosewood Collective members Susan Harville and Nancy Lazarus. During the 1950s and ’60s, Betty made hundreds of pies for her five children, always with tender, flaky crusts. Now, Susan, a Moosewood dessert maker, makes many different sorts of piecrusts, but when Nancy wants to make a pie, she digs out the handwritten index card that Betty gave her in the ’70s. Still always tender and flaky.
Yields a single or double crust for one 9½- or 10-inch pie plate
Time: 15 minutes
1½ cups unbleached white all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons water
½ cup (1 stick) cold butter
¼ teaspoon salt, if using unsalted butter
Put the flour into a mixing bowl. In a cup or small bowl, make a paste of ¼ cup of the flour and the water. With a pastry cutter or two table knives, cut the butter into the dry flour until the pieces are the size of small peas. Add the flour paste and mix (with a spoon or your hands) until the dough comes together and can be shaped into a ball.
2½ cups unbleached white all-purpose flour
⅓ cup water
¾ cup (1½ sticks) cold butter
Scant ½ teaspoon salt, if using unsalted butter
Use the same procedure as for single crust, except make the flour paste with ½ cup of the flour and ⅓ cup water.
If you want to hold the pie dough to roll out later, wrap it well in plastic wrap and keep it in the refrigerator.