Three Babe's Mini Pie Crusts

Ingredients

• 9 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Cream, for brushing crust
• Coarse sugar, for finishing crust
• Kosher salt
• Butter, for greasing your muffin tin

Directions

1. Put the butter in a bowl and tuck it into the freezer. In a small bowl, stir together the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt until everything has dissolved, then move that bowl to the freezer as well.
2. Add the flour to a chilled bowl. Take the butter back out of the freezer, add it to the flour, and work it in with a pastry cutter until you have a rough, crumbly mixture. Pinch through it with your fingers to break down any especially big bits of butter.
3. Drizzle in the chilled water and vinegar mixture gradually, tossing the dough first and then using a spatula to press it together. Stop as soon as it holds as a dough. Shape it into a disk, cover it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a smooth rectangle measuring at least 9- by 13-inches. Cut out 4-inch rounds using either the lid from a takeout container and a pizza slicer, or a very large biscuit cutter. Move the rounds gently onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet and refrigerate them for 30 minutes. If the leftover dough is still chilled, roll it out again and cut narrow lattice strips with the pizza slicer; refrigerate those separately for later if you are making mini fruit pies with lattice tops.
5. Microwave about 2 tablespoons of butter until melted. Using either a pastry brush or a paper towel, coat the muffin tin well, including both the cups and the surface around them.
6. Set the dough rounds into the prepared muffin tin, pressing them in so the pastry sits flush against the bottom and sides without any trapped air. Refrigerate the tin while you prepare the filling.