Buttery, Flaky Pie Crust
Pie crust is my favorite part of pie. I’m a weirdo, I know. But I love it. Buttery. Flaky. Amazing. And even really simple to make! Just 4 ingredients can get you delicious crust dough that you can use for fruit pies, cream pies, and any baked pie you can imagine.
The other part I love about making pie crust is I get to use my hands. You can absolutely use a pastry cutter to cut-in your butter. But as a part of mindful baking, any time you can dive in and use your hands and experience the changes happening in your dough, its the best. Its messy but it really immerses you in the experience of creating the pie crust.
And some people use shortening in their crust…I just cannot pass up the taste that butter gives the crust.
What Do I Need?
To this dough, you don’t need much. 4 ingredients, some bowls, and a good work surface. If you don’t have a good surface to work with, use a silicon pastry mat. Keeps your dough from sticking and keeps your counters cleaner. I use my countertop usually, but then you will want a bench scraper to help you clean it up.
For rolling out the pie crust, I really have come to prefer a french rolling pin. These rolling pins don’t have handles, they are just a straight or slightly curved cylindar of wood. You can apply much better pressure with this than the one with handles.
Another trick I learned about in watching pie videos (yeah, I watch videos on making pie) is to use a rolling guide. The ones pictured from Amazon are what I own. Each color is a different thickness - 1/16”. 1/8”, and 1/4”. You place these on either side of your dough as you roll it out, and once it reaches the desired thickness, the guides stop you from making it any thinner. So you get a precise thickness. This engineer loves precision, so I bought these and love using them.
What I use:
Tips and Tricks
You are going to start by simply sifting the flour and salt together - or combining them and whisking them. This is just to get the dry ingredients well-combined and the salt is evenly dispersed.
Your butter should be cut into 1’ chunks, or smaller. I cut my sticks of butter down the middle, then along the tablespoon lines.
Add the butter to the flour and cut it in. This is the fun part. If you are feeling adventurous and want to experience baking with all senses, use your hands. Toss the flour and butter together a bit, then use your fingers to rub the chunks of butter into the flour. You will essentially be making large flakes of butter as you do this.
Rub rub rub. Toss it around with your hands. Rub rub rub.
I know. That’s what she said.
Find the large chunks of butter that remain and rub them in. When you have all the larger pieces of butter broken down, toss it around again.
The recipe says to make sure the butter is pea-sized or a bit bigger. Bigger is fine. In this picture you can see large flakes of butter. If they look larger, they are usually flat. The small ones are rounded and pea sized.
Lastly you are going to add your water. Don’t add all of it at once. Do about 3/4 of it, and ‘fluff’ it with your hands. Put your fingers in the bottom and bring them straight up, as though you were tossing a salad but with your hands. The water will make the dough start to form and come together. If you do not get a shaggy dough as pictured above, keep adding water a little bit at a time until it looks like this picture.
Now you are just going to push it together into a rough ball. Put it on your work surface and knead it 2 or 3 times to just make it stick together. To knead it, push it gently away from you, then fold it over itself top to bottom.
Form it into a ball and cut it in half with a bench scraper or knife. Form each piece into a disk, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough at least 4 hours before you use it. And overnight is best.
And check out this pic of the disks. You can still see the bits of butter. This butter will steam as it bakes and that is what gives you that beautiful flakiness.
Last note - when you roll out your dough, if you are waiting to add the filling, throw it on a baking sheet and pop it back in the fridge. You should also refrigerate your filled pie if possible for 10-15 minutes before you bake it. I’ve had the butter weep out and make my beautiful flaky crust taste less than beautiful. The butter in the dough still being chilled when it goes into the hot oven is key.
The Flakiest Pie Crust
Ingredients
Instructions
- Sift flour and salt into a bowl.
- Cut the butter into 1-inch chunks.
- Add butter to the dry ingredients. Blend it into the flour with your fingers until the butter is the size of peas or a bit bigger.
- Make a well in the center of the butter and flour mixture.
- Add the ice water to the well in small increments and use your hands to 'fluff' it to the dry ingredients.
- When the dough just starts to come together, push it together in the bowl. Place it on your work surface and knead it by pushing down and folding it in half, just two or three times until it resembles a raggedy dough.
- Cut in half and flatten each half into a disk.
- Wrap each disk of the finished dough in plastic and chill for 4-24 hours.
- When ready to use, remove and roll out to the proper size. Chill dough again once in the pie tin and/or after the filling is added but before baking. You will want the dough to go into the oven chilled to get the best flakiness.
Do you have any favorite tricks for flaky pie crust? Share them in the comments!
Enjoy!
