If I was going to choose one pie crust recipe to use for the rest of my life.
It is this one. It is made with 100% butter. It is easy and I am telling you the flaky layers are amazing.
You can use it for sweet pies, savory pies. We've used it for almost all the pie recipes on Inspired Taste.
We've got our sweet potato pie which is a single crust pie and we've also got our apple pie which is a double crust pie with a lattice crust. This pie crust makes those so simple.
Here’s how to make pie crust using a food
processor. We’ll also show how to do it by hand next.
Measure your flour using the weight given in our recipe or by using the fluff and scoop
method. To do it, stir the flour a bit, then spoon the fluffed up flour into your
measuring cup. Now swipe away the excess flour using the other end of your spoon.
We need 1 ½ cups of flour in the food processor and
an extra cup of flour saved in a bowl to the side.
Splitting up the flour like this is our secret to the best flaky pie crust.
Toss in a tablespoon of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt then pulse a few times to mix.
The sugar is optional, I add it when making sweet pies.
Now cut 1 cup of cold butter into small pieces and scatter over the flour.
Process the butter into the flour until all of the flour is coated in the butter.
The mixture turns a bit yellow and when you press it together, it holds a shape.
Just like this.
Now we can add the remaining flour. Splitting up our flour
like this guarantees our pie crust will be flaky, light, and tender.
It’s all about creating the right balance of gluten for structure,
but not overdoing it. You can read more about this in the article on Inspired Taste.
We are ready to add some water - we want it pretty cold, which is why I’ve added ice.
Scatter tablespoons of water over the dough. I start with
6 and go from there. If any ice cubes sneak in, take them out.
Use a spoon or spatula to press the dough together, adding more water as needed. When the
dough looks crumbly, but will hold mostly together on one side of the bowl, you have enough water.
The day we filmed this, the air was dry so we needed a few more tablespoons of water than usual.
This is what you are looking for.
Empty the bowl onto a work surface and bring it together with your hands. We aren’t kneading here,
just pushing the dough together into one big lump.
This recipe makes enough for two single crust pies or one double crust pie.
Do your best to cut it in half, then press each lump of dough into a disk and wrap well.
Refrigerate until you need it -- or freeze. It lasts in the
fridge for 3 days and in the freezer for 3 months.
Now you’re ready to make your favorite pie!!
If you don’t have a food processor,
we want to show you how to make pie dough by hand. Just like when using a processor,
I’ve got about 60% of my flour in a large bowl, and save the remaining flour to the side.
Add the salt and sugar, then whisk until blended.
Use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the flour. This takes a bit of elbow grease,
but you’ll get there in a minute or two.
The mixture won’t be as blended as when using the food processor, but it can get pretty
close. See how the flour has turned from white to yellowish? That means all of our flour is coated.
Now we can add the remaining flour. Just cut it in so it’s mixed throughout the bowl.
Now you can add your water -- I scatter 6 tablespoons of ice water over the mixture
and then go from there. Press everything together until it begins to hold itself up.
Add more water if you think it needs it. This is what you are looking for.
Empty the somewhat crumbly mixture onto your work surface,
bring it together with your hands, cut in half, and then wrap. I form my dough
into disks since it helps when rolling out the dough into a circle later on.
Now we have our pie dough, let’s show you how easy it is to roll out.
Flour a clean work surface, and then place one of your dough disks down.
Now since this was just in the fridge it's going to be a bit hard to roll
at first. That’s why I gently press the dough with a rolling pin to soften it.
When it’s more pliable, begin to roll it out, rolling away from you,
and then turning the dough to keep a rough circle.
The dough will probably crack in places around the edge. No problem, just press them back together.
Keep rolling until the dough is at least 1-inch larger than your pie dish.
As you're rolling, do a check to make sure the bottom isn’t sticking. Just move it
from side to side. If it’s sticking, add a bit more flour. If it’s getting too soft,
place it onto a baking sheet and chill for a few minutes.
Now roll the dough up and around your rolling pin, and unroll it back into the pie dish.
Gently move the dough so that it goes down into the dish -- try not
to stretch the dough as that will bounce back in the oven.
Now you can trim any excess and, if making a single crust pie, add some decoration. For
a double crust pie, you would wait to do this until the top crust has been added.
I build up the sides a bit by folding the edges over onto themselves. For areas that
are a little light, use the excess dough you cut away earlier to build those areas up.
Then use a finger and my knuckles to crimp. You can experiment, but its
pretty simple to make larger or smaller crimps depending on how hard to press.
This is the base for a sweet potato pie, but for a double crust pie,
let’s take a look at our apple pie. It uses the same pie crust and it works beautifully.
For this apple pie, we make it double crust with a lattice crust on top. It’s easier than
you might think and we walk you through the whole process in our apple pie video.
For questions and to see how many people have made and loved this pie crust recipe,
see the recipe on Inspired Taste.
Oh and if you liked the look of that sweet potato
pie in the beginning, we have a recipe and video for that too!
See you next time!