The Best Pie Dough Recipe--EVER

Cherry and Peach Pie 

So, I realized after my last post that I have not actually discussed my favorite pie dough recipe on here. So, here we go. While watching the show Mad Hungry on the Hallmark Channel, I fell in love with several of Lucinda Scala-Quinn's recipes--and have discussed quite a few of them on this blog. However, the absolute staple recipe which I have come to love is her pie dough recipe, aka Basic Dough.

The recipe is extremely simple, and consists of four ingredients. I recommend using a pastry cutter, as I feel it gives the best results. Second, I would suggest paying close attention to the elasticity of the dough. Being the person I am, I am extremely hesitant about deviating from the recipe. If it says use "1/2 milk" then that's all I use. However, this is one place where it is okay to deviate. If the dough is too dry, add more milk.

Don't over work your dough (i.e. roll it out too much). A lot of the flakiness of the dough comes from the rather good chunks of butter, which melts into the rest of the dough, and creates air pockets (aka the flakiness). Thus, you want to see the chunks of butter when you are rolling out your dough.

Finally, this doesn't have to be a sweet pie only dough. I've used it for quiche, chicken pot pie, etc. The website also notes that you can freeze the dough (so you can make a lot of it in advance, just divide it before you freeze).

Chicken Pot Pie, full crust