Prize Winning Food Processor Pie Crust

3/4 cup cake flour

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

5 tablespoons shortening

1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

3 cubes ice

1/2 cup cold water

Measure butter & shortening onto a plate, put into freezer for about 20 minutes.

Measure cake flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds to mix.

Take 1/2 of the cold butter and 1/2 of the cold shortening, put into processor with dry ingredients and pulse off and on for about 1 minute. Scrape down twice while doing this.

Take remainder of the cold butter & cold shortening and cut in very briefly with the processor, leaving visible pea-sized chunks. Do not over process at this stage!

For those (like myself) who don't have a food processor, here's what I did. I sifted all dry ingredients with a fork. Again I did this when mixing the first clump of butter. The butter should be thoroughly mixed at this point, mixture should be slightly sticky {ie, if you squeeze it through your fingers, some clumps should hold) and you should be able to see the butter coloring uniformly throughout, no chunks, etc.) When it came time to add the second clump, I cut the butter up into 1/4 inch chunks and dropped them in. Then I used two forks and, as if I were cutting spaghetti for kids, and mixed the butter around until pea sized chunks were floating around the mixture

In a measuring cup, mix egg yolk and vinegar together, add ice cubes and water. Let this get chilled, about 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove mixed flours and shortening from processor, put into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle approximately 4 to 5 tablespoons of this egg, water, vinegar mixture, a little at a time, mixing gently with a fork. The key to this is, you do not want a wet dough, and you do not want to overmix.

Place this dough into plastic wrap or plastic bag, chill in refrigerator for a few minutes. (May also be frozen for a few weeks at this stage for future use).

Remove from refrigerator and roll out.

Top and bottom for a 9" pie or bottom and lattice for a 10" pie