Basic Pie Pastry

Hey,
So someone out there asked about pie pastry. There are obviously a million variations out there, but here is the one I used for the Leftover Dinner Pie. It's a Nigella Lawson recipe. I tried a lot of different ways to make pie pastry, but I found that her freezer method (below) was really helpful. Once you get used to making this kind of dough, you realize how versatile it is. You could use cheese in it for a savoury pie or crushed nuts, or zest for a sweet pie, you could switch up the type of flour too. The list goes on and on.

250g/9oz Plain Flour
125g/4.5oz cold unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
2 egg yolks
2tbsp ice water
1 heaped tsp salt
1tbsp sugar

Put the flour and butter in a dish, and put the dish in your freezer for 10 minutes. Stir together the yolks, salt and water in a cup, and put the cup in the fridge.
When the time is up, tip the flour and butter into a food processor, add the sugar and pulse to combine, it will look somewhere between sand and porridge oats. Pour in the egg yolk mixture and pulse till it looks like it's on the verge of coming together (stop just short of it binding). You may need to add more water. Turn the dough out and mash together with your hands. Once it is all bound together, cut it in two, wrap in cling film, and let rest in the fridge (generally about half an hour, but will keep in there for a couple of days I think). If you are using it for two batches, cut in two evenly. If you are making a springform cake tin pie, then cut one peice slightly larger then the other (one for the base, one for the top).

I love dough