The Perfect Butter Pie Crust
a flaky crust for all of your pie needs, sweet or savory
This recipe makes two crusts, and takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes to make, including two chilling periods. If you choose to forego the chilling periods, it takes about 15 minutes.
Ingredients
2.5 cups flour (all purpose or pastry)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, chilled
8 tablespoons ice water (give or take)
How To
Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. If you have the time, chill your mixing bowl with dry ingredients for an hour; keeping all of your ingredients cold will contribute to a flakier pie crust.
Grate your butter (I use a cheese grater) into your dry ingredients, tossing a bit of the flour mixture over the grated butter from time to time as it piles up to prevent it from sticking together in a mass.
Use a pastry cutter, a couple of knives, or a food processor to cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Work quickly so that your ingredients don’t get too warm, and avoid overworking the dough. Avoid using your hands, as they will melt the butter. You want visible little chunks of cold butter in the crust when you bake it; when heated, they will puff the crust into our desirable end product!
Add ice water one tablespoon at a time while mixing (don’t add the ice cubes). When you are able to squeeze the crumbly mixture together into a cohesive dough which is neither too crumbly nor too sticky, stop adding water.
Form two balls of dough, wrap in plastic or beeswax wraps, and chill in the fridge for at least an hour (or up to a day, if you’re prepping the crusts in advance).
Roll out your crusts and use them in any of your sweet or savory pie recipes. And, since I can’t emphasize it enough— whenever you’re not actively working with the dough (like when you’ve rolled out one crust and need to roll the other, for example), chill it!
Notes
I have frozen pie crusts (wrapped in plastic and placed in freezer bags) for up to a couple months with some success, but recommend making them fresh.
I recommend using organic flour, as conventional wheat flour contains agricultural chemicals (like glyphosate) that do a major disservice to your body when eaten routinely.
Likewise, I love using grass fed butter to make the pie crust more nourishing with its saturated fat, arachidonic acid, and fat-soluble vitamins!
If you try to make this recipe with Crisco, I will formally disown you (kind of kidding, kind of not).
If you have any questions, please drop them in the comments below!
