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About how little oil can I add to an amount of flour to make a dough that is one lump of one consistency, not crumbly and in pieces? I'm looking for a ratio of solid to liquid. If it matters what kinds of flour and oil, let's say olive oil and white wheat all-purpose flour.

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What are you actually trying to do? Doughs are not generally made out of just flour and oil. – Jefromi♦ Mar 21 '12 at 6:26
Biblical meal offerings judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/15272/… – yitznewton Mar 21 '12 at 10:50
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Are you sure it is not allowed to contain water? Short pie crust is 2-1 flour-fat and quite crumbly. But if you add just a teaspoon of water to 300 g dough, it comes together to a ball. – rumtscho♦ Mar 23 '12 at 14:27
@rumtscho Interesting! The fat in this case I assume is solid (eg Crisco shortening). If you used a liquid lipid (eg vegetable oil) would the water still be necessary? – Double AA Mar 23 '12 at 15:59

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This is actually not answerable as an absolute. One of the Great Unknowns when baking with flour is how humid it has been in your flour storage recently, and thus how much water is already in the flour. I've had a few cups of flour require as much as half a cup extra water to get the right consistency depending on the season.

My usual approach for making the driest dough I can is to instead of pre-measuring, add the liquid gradually to a spinning food processor that contains the dry ingredients. It will lump up quite quickly when the liquid is right.

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