Basic Pie Dough

To prepare the dough by hand, combine the flour and salt in a
stainless steel bowl, using a pastry knife mix well. Add the cold
butter cubes to the flour and mix in until the mixture begins to
resemble a mealy mixture where the butter forms pea-sized nuggets
plainly visible in the flour. Add only enough ice water to pull the
dough together. The water should be added to the flour slowly to
ensure that only the minimum amount of water is used. Do not over mix
the dough. When the dough has been mixed just sufficiently to combine
the ingredients, form it into a ball and wrap in a piece of plastic
and refrigerate for several hours. When ready to use, lightly flour a
pastry board and a rolling pin, and unwrap the dough. Divide the
dough into 2 equal pieces and begin to roll out the first piece into
the bottom crust. Tamp down the dough with the pin and gently begin
to roll out into a circular pie shape by rolling evenly outward from
the center and turning the dough in small 1/8th turns to keep the
rolling even. When the dough is rolled out to an even thickness and
is about 12 inches and is about 1/8th-inch thick it is ready to be
transferred to a 10-inch pie tin. Lightly butter the tin, lift the
dough with the rolling pin by partially rolling the dough up on the
pin, center the dough in the tin and unroll. Pierce it in several
places with the tines of a fork. Roll the second half of the pie
dough into a round shape slightly larger than the pie pan. Fill the
bottom crust with your chosen fruit filling. Cover the filling, such
as apple, with the top half of the pie dough. Using both hands, crimp
the edges of the two crusts together to seal. With a sharp knife,
make several crosshatch slits in the top crust. Brush with an egg
wash and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 35 to 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool for 20 minutes. This recipe yields two
12-inch pie crusts.