This tender, slightly tangy crust snuggles up to both sweet and savory fillings. It’s sturdy enough to cut into shapes, loves a good crimp, stands tall on the sides, and shines under an egg wash. Use full-fat cream cheese in a block, not whipped.
Ingredients
1⅓cups160 g all-purpose flour
4tablespoons56 g unsalted butter, cubed and frozen for 20 minutes
4tablespoons2 ounces, 56 g cream cheese, cubed and refrigerated for 20 minutes
⅛teaspoonkosher salt
¼cup60 ml ice water
Instructions
Place the work bowl of the food processor on the scale, set the scale to zero, and weigh the flour into the bowl. Weigh in the butter and cream cheese and add the salt. Move the bowl to the food processor base, insert the metal blade, cover, and use the Pulse function to cut the flour, butter, and cream cheese into flour-covered pea-sized pieces, about 15 quick pulses. Add the ice water all at once and process until the dough almost comes together in a ball. All the flour will be dampened and the dough will clump.
Spend time on this next step because the more compact and precise the dough, the easier it is to roll to the correct size and thickness. Form an X with two long pieces of overlapping plastic wrap and lightly flour the surface. Dump the dough onto the center of the plastic wrap, scraping the processor bowl clean. Wrap the sloppy gathering of dough in plastic and, at the same time, use a bench scraper (not your warm hands that might melt the fat clumps) to form the dough into a 4-inch disk or a 3½- by 3½-inch block. Once wrapped, use a rolling pin to gently press across the surface of the dough, then flip it over and do the same on the other side. Now let it rest: Refrigerate the dough for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight. Alternatively, slip the plastic-wrapped dough block into a ziptop bag and freeze it for up to 3 months. Defrost gently, overnight in the refrigerator.
Notes
Recipe reprinted with permission from Cathy Barrow's When Pies Fly (Grand Central, 2019)