There are many different recipes of pie crunch: with or without butter, with or without almond powder, with different proportion of ingredients, adding the ingredients in different orders – the flour first or at the end -, handmade or using a food processor… I choose this recipe, from Christophe Felder, because it is simple and easy to roll out.
Finely dice the cold butter and put it in your food processor with flour, sugar and salt.
Mix until you get a granulated texture. It should become like sand.
Add the water while mixing, until you have a smooth uniform mixture. Remove from the processor and form a ball.
Knead the dough twice (Put the dough on a floured surface, crush it with the palm of your hand and reshape a ball. This process aerates the dough so it will not shrink in the oven).
Reshape the ball, put flour all around and place in a bowl Cover with plastic wrap and leave it in the refrigerator for at least 1 to 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 320°F (160°C).
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and leave it at room temperature for a few minutes so that it won’t be too cold. Lay it out on a clean floured surface.
Flatten the dough with a rolling pin to stretch it to a circle of the correct size (1 cm bigger than you pan).
Grease your pan (or use a sheet of greasepoof paper) and place your dough using your rolling pin (roll your dough around the pin, place in over one edge of your pan and unroll it).
Make sure the sides stick to your pan otherwise they will fall down while baking. Cut the edges with a knife or any sharp utensil and remove the excess of dough.
With a knife, cut the excess of dough all around the pan, then with a fork, make little holes (make sure you don’t pierce the dough).
Put a sheet of greaseproof paper and add weights (baking weights or if you don’t have any kennel or seed). Pre-bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 320°F (160°C).