Gallery: Step-by-Step: How to Make the Best Pie Crust

Scatter the butter chunks evenly over the top of the flour mixture.

Seal the processor and pulse it to start breaking up the butter. In a typical pie crust recipe, you stop when the butter is in pea-sized pieces. But this time, we're gonna keep going.

Keep going until no dry flour remains and the mixture resembles a dough that collects in clumps.

Spread the dough out around the bottom of the food processor bowl using a rubber spatula, then sprinkle it with the remaining flour.

Pulse the dough one last time to incorporate, about 5 short pulses. The moist dough should break up, with plenty of dry flour still surrounding it.

Transfer the dough to a bowl using a rubber spatula and sprinkle with the water.

Use the spatula to fold the dough over itself, incorporating the water.

Continue folding the dough until it forms one solid ball.

Transfer the dough to a well-floured work surface. This dough will be quite a bit more moist than a traditional dough. Don't be afraid to use a little extra flour!

Use a bench scraper to divide the dough into two even pieces.

Shape the dough into two 4-inch disks. Wrap them tightly in plastic and refrigerate them for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days before proceeding.

When ready to shape the dough, pull out one ball, set it on a well-floured work surface, and sprinkle with more flour.

Use a tapered rolling pin to start rolling the dough out into a circle, lifting the dough and rotating it while rolling to achieve an even shape.

Continue rolling, changing the angle of your rolling pin as you go to get an even shape and thickness. The finished dough should overhang your pie plate by an inch or two.

Pick up the dough by carefully rolling it around your rolling pin, using your bench scraper to help lift it off the work surface. Unroll it over a pie plate.

Gently lift and fit the dough into the pie plate, getting down into the corners.

For a single-crusted pie, use a pair of scissors to trim the dough so that it overhangs the edge by 1/2 inch all around. For a double-crusted pie, at this stage, fill it and drape your second round of pie dough over the top. Trim it to a 1/2-inch overhang along with the lower crust.

Tuck the overhanging edge under itself all the way around the pie. (If making a double-crusted pie, tuck both the top and bottom crust edges together under the bottom crust.)

Flute the edges of the pie crust using the forefinger of one hand and the thumb and forefinger of the other.

The single-crust pie shell is ready to be blind-baked or filled. For a double-crusted pie, brush with an egg white, sprinkle with sugar, and cut vent holes in the top with a sharp knife before baking.