Recipe: Plan-Ahead Pastry with Variations (freeze ahead)

PLAN-AHEAD PASTRY

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup cold water
1 tablespoon white vinegar

TO MAKE THE PASTRY:
In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, and sugar. With a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter and shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With a fork, stir in the water and vinegar until the mixture forms a ball of dough. Add a little more water, if necessary, to make the dough manageable.

Divide the dough into 3 pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a flattened ball and roll out between pieces of wax paper to make a 12-inch round. Repeat with remaining balls of dough. Stack the 3 dough rounds, each still in the wax paper, and wrap the stack tightly in freezer wrap. Freeze until ready to use -- no longer than 6 months.

WHEN READY TO USE THE PASTRY:
Remove as many rounds as needed from the freezer. For the bottom crust, remove the wax paper from the frozen pastry round and place the frozen round over a 9-inch pie plate. Set aside to thaw while the filling is being prepared. For the top crust, revove only 1 piece of wax paper. When the bottom pastry has thawed, press it into the pie plate, crimp the edges, fill it, and bake according to recipe directions for the filling you are using.

If the top crust is being used, invert a second pastry round over the filling, peel off the remaining wax paper, and crimp the edges. This recipe yields three 9-inch pie crusts.

VARIATIONS:

OIL-BASED PASTRY:
Omit the butter, shortening, and vinegar. Combine 1 cup vegetable oil and 3/4 cup cold water; stir it into the flour mixture all at once to make a ball of dough. Then continue with the instructions.

PRE-BAKED PIE SHELL:
Fit the thawed pastry round into the pie plate and crimp the edges. Pierce the bottom of the pastry with the tines of a fork. Line the center of the pastry shell with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Preheat the oven and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, remove the foil and weights, and bake until the center is golden, 5 to 10 minutes longer. (If beans were used for weights, they may be cooled and stored in a jar for use as weights at another time. They will not be good for eating.)

Source: The Weekend Kitchen by Joanne Lamb Hayes and Bonnie Tandy Leblang