Recipe: Sour Cream Pie Dough

PIE-A-DAY #12

This week in pie crusts, let’s try some sour cream. Adrienne Kane includes this recipe in her new United States of Pie, where she writes that the tangy sour cream complements rich winter pies.

Keep reading for her recipe for Sour Cream Pie Dough, and click here to enter YOUR delicious pie (or pies) in the 4th Annual Good Food Pie Contest on Saturday, September 8th at LACMA.

Sour Cream Pie Dough

(From Adrienne Kane’s United States of Pie)

Makes enough for one 9-inch double-crusted pie or two 9-inch pie shells.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into ½-inch cubes

4 tablespoons (¼ cup) vegetable shortening, chilled, cut into ½-inch cubes

½ cup sour cream

2 to 5 tablespoons ice water

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt until well blended and free of lumps. Add the butter and the shortening, and toss gently to coat. Add the sour cream. With your fingertips, work the fats into the flour, rubbing them into the flour until the mixture resembles gravel.

Sprinkle on the ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, starting with a total of 2 tablespoons and then gradually adding more water if needed. Blend with your fingertips, as quickly as possible, pulling the mixture together and creating a dough. The dough will become less sticky and more of a mass when enough water has been added. Finally, knead the dough minimally in the bowl to make sure it has just enough moisture.

Divide the dough in half. (One mound of dough should weigh approximately 11 ounces.) Place each half on a sheet of plastic wrap and seal it. Gently form each one into a disk roughly ¾-inch thick. Place the wrapped dough in the refrigerator and leave it for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days, before rolling it out. The dough can be frozen for up to 1 month and defrosted in the refrigerator before using.