In the Caribbean we are mostly partial to tarts over pies. Guava tarts, coconut tarts, prune tarts are my favorite. My hubby loves apple and custard tarts.
The years spent in the United States introduced me to the concept of the big tart, pie. Apple pie is an all American favorite, pumpkin pie is another favorite of Americans.
Moving to Australia, most people love apple pie, but pumpkin pie seems strange to most Australians. And most of all, for an Aussie pie, whatever you do, no soggy bottoms.
This is the recipe for a pie crust. What you fill it with is up to you.
Ingredients
250g butter (frozen)
2.5 Cups All purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
5 Tbsp ice cold water
1 Tbsp apple Sider vinegar (to help with flakiness)
Freeze your stick of butter because you are going to grate it.
In a bowl combine your flour, sugar, salt.
Grate your frozen butter and add it to the flour mixture.
Rub your butter and flour together till the mixture resembles crumbs. Make a well in this mixture and add your cold water and apple cider vinegar. Mix these together, this will not form a dough without being pressed. Press the mixture together untill it forms a loose dough ball. Do not knead this dough or gluten will form and the dough will be tough.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or longer. Doing this will make the dough easier to work with when your ready to roll it out.
This dough is enough for a pie top and bottom and should make 780g of dough. 400g can make the bottom part of this crust when rolled out. The rest can make the top if a top is needed (or it can make turn overs if no top is required for your pie)
You can keep this dough in the fridge for a week.
Roll your dough out with a rolling pin 1/4 inche thick.
Once rolled out place dough in your pie dish and refrigerate for 15 minutes before adding your filling.
Add pumpkin, apple, blueberry, strawberry, pecan fillings to the flaky short crust.
Use this same crust to make apple turn overs, or small coconut or guava tarts.
This recipe always works. Give it a try ❤️
Grande Mangeur 