Here’s a simple pastry crust recipe that you can prepare at home

Pastry crust recipe Is not that difficult once you get the hang of it. It is any day better than the frozen pastry crust that you get at stores. Every baker has a different recipe or trick for baking a perfect pastry or pie crust.

The most classic pastry crust recipe has butter as its main ingredient. Conventionally, vegetable oil is used to prepare the dough but to make the dough easy to roll out and give the pastry crust a flaky texture use sour cream along with fat.

For a homemade pastry crust recipe, put flour (2 cups), sugar and salt (teaspoon each) in a bowl and pulse the mixture with a food processor for a few minutes. Add about half a cup of butter and mix. Add the rest of the butter into the mixture and pulse for another 8 to 10 times.

Sprinkle some ice-cold water on the mixture and mix again. Add a tablespoon of ice water every time and mix. Do this until the dough starts to hold together. The mixture or the dough is ready once the dough is crumbly enough. Don’t add too much water as it will make the crust too tough.

Once the dough is tough enough, gather it in a form of a mound. Push it down with the palm of your hand. This will flatten the remaining pieces of butter into layers, making the crust flakier.

Divide the dough into even-sized mounds. Make them into disks using the palm of your hand. Over kneading might develop gluten which will toughen the dough further, something you definitely do not want in a pastry crust.

Wrap each disk (sprinkled with a flour) in a plastic wrap and refrigerate it for an hour. You can refrigerate it for up to two days. Remove the dough disks and let them sit at room temperature for up to 10 minutes. This will soften the dough and make rolling out a bit easier.

Add the filling (cream cheese, powdered sugar and cinnamon) roll out the second dough and place it on to the top of the filling of the pie. Trim the excess dough leaving a bit of overhang. Slit the top of the pie with 2-inch-long cuts which will blow out the steam that form inside the crust.

When the crust is sufficiently chilled, line it with a parchment or wax paper or aluminum foil and bake it in in an oven preheated at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes, or until the crust forms a golden color. Once baked set it to cool. Once cooled, cut them in the form of pastries and set them in the refrigerator to chill.

This is one of the very basic pastry crust recipes that is definitely worth a try.