Recipe: No-Fear Pie Crust (pat-in-the-pan crust using butter and cream cheese)

NO-FEAR PIE CRUST

"The pastry can be pressed into the pie plate and refrigerated for up to 2 days or double-wrapped in plastic and frozen for up to 1 month. Once baked and cooled, the shell can be wrapped tightly in plastic and stored at room temperature for up to 1 day."

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), softened but still cool
2 ounces cream cheese , softened but still cool

1. Lightly coat 9-inch Pyrex pie plate with cooking spray. Whisk flour, sugar, and salt together in bowl.

2. With electric mixer at medium-high speed, beat butter and cream cheese in large bowl, stopping once or twice to scrape down beater and sides of bowl, until completely homogenous, about 2 minutes. Add flour mixture and combine on medium-low until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal, about 20 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl. Increase mixer speed to medium-high and beat until dough begins to form large clumps, about 30 seconds. Reserve 3 tablespoons of dough. Turn remaining dough onto lightly floured surface, gather into ball, and flatten into 6-inch disk. Transfer disk to greased pie plate.

3. Press dough evenly over bottom of pie plate toward sides, using heel of your hand. Hold plate up to light to ensure that dough is evenly distributed (see photo 1 at left). With your fingertips, continue to work dough over bottom of plate and up sides until evenly distributed.

4. On floured surface, roll reserved dough into 12-inch rope. Divide into three pieces, roll each piece into 8-inch rope, and form fluted edge (photos 2 through 4). Wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

5. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly prick bottom of crust with fork. Bake until golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack. (If large bubbles form, wait until crust is fully baked, then gently press on bubbles with kitchen towel. Bubbles will settle as crust cools.)

TEST KITCHEN DISCOVERIES:
* A pat-in-the-pan pie dough is a no-fear dough because there's no need to roll it out or to transfer it to the pie plate after it's been rolled out. Conventional doughs are either too sticky or too stiff to be pressed directly into a pie plate.
* Adding cream cheese makes pie dough easy to manipulate. In addition, both the acidity of the cream cheese and its fat promote tenderness.
* The moisture in cream cheese replaces the traditional ice water, eliminating the guesswork about the amount to add.
* As long as the dough is chilled when it goes into the oven, it won't shrink, so there's no need to use the pie weights usually required when baking an empty pie shell.

Makes one (9-inch) Pie Shell
Source: Cooks Illustrated