Ingredients To Make Pie Crust

How To Bake A Homemade Pie Crust:

Bake with filling: If you are filling your pie with something that needs to be baked then make your dough, fill, and bake it according to the directions of that recipe.

Blind baking: Otherwise you can bake the pie crust and fill it with a no-bake filling like chocolate pudding or no-bake peanut butter filling.

When blind baking your pie crust to use for a no-bake pie filling place parchment paper side then fill with dried beans or pie weights.

This will help your pie crust from rising. Another option would be placing several small holes in the bottom of the pie and around the edge to make sure it does not rise.

I used a fork and when around the entire bottom of the pie before baking it. Bake at 400 degrees for 14-15 minutes or until golden brown.

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The Myths Behind Flaky Pie Crust

On paper, classic pie dough is a mind-bogglingly simple recipe. Combine flour with a bit of salt and sugar, cut in some butter, lard, and/or shortening, then add just enough cold water to get it to come together into a disk. Roll it out and bake. That’s it.

The underlying difficulty in the technique comes during the first stage of cutting the butter into the flour. Unless you make pie dough day in and day out, it’s close to impossible to accurately cut butter into flour to the same degree on a consistent basis. Don’t cut it in quite enough, and you need to add extra water to absorb the excess dry flour, resulting in the over-formation of gluten, and a tough, leathery crust. On the other hand, cut it in just bit too much, and you end up with way too little dry flour. Rather than having well-structured flaky layers, you end up with a crust that crumbles into sandy pieces, like this:

J. Kenji López-Alt

That is the reason why you sometimes need to add a couple tablespoons of water and other times up to twice as much to get the dough to come togetherit’s got nothing to do with the relative humidity of the air, as many books will have you believe. Indeed, in the short time that it takes to make a pie crust, flour will absorb approximately 0.1% of its weight in water, even in the most humid of environments. That’s a small enough amount to effectively be zero.

J. Kenji López-Alt

Two: Add Cold Butter To The Dry Ingredients And Pulse Until It Resembles Wet Sand

We recommend cutting your butter into smalls cubes and then popping it in the freezer for fifteen minutes to keep it nice and cold. The key to a flaky pie crust is keeping those cold little butter pockets so it is so important to use ice cold butter. Pulse the ingredients a few times until the mixture resembles wet sand and no visible chunks of butter remain.

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Pie Crust Recipes And A Favorite Pie

What’s your perfect pie crust? It depends on what you’re looking for. Here are a few excellent pie dough recipes you can try as you learn how to make pie dough from scratch, and a Yummly apple pie recipe to get you thinking about the pie filling.

Creating a fabulous apple pie is all about the details. For starters, not every apple holds up well to baking, so this pie features two that do, Granny Smith and Golden Delicious. Three kinds of spices and two of citrus add complexity, and cranberries bring in a pop of color and tartness. For beauty, and to prevent the slump that can occur in a baked apple pie between the top pastry crust and the filling, youll precook the apples just a little.

Now you can sit down and enjoy your well-earned and well-made slice of pie.

A slice of double-crust Spiced Apple Cranberry Pie

Time Tested And Easy Pie Crust

Ive tested this perfect pie crust recipe so many times over the years and know this recipe works with most pie fillings and can be made by hand fairly quickly. It always provides a flaky crust with lots of flavor that is sturdy enough for heavy pie fillings.

In other words, this is the perfect pie crust and the only recipe youll ever really need.

Heres how I make it.

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Tips For Getting Pie Dough Into A Pie Pan

Transferring dough from the counter to your pie plate can be tricky. Lifting that big round directly from the work surface to the plate puts you at risk for tearing. Use one of these two methods instead. These tips for careful positioning once you get the dough to the pie plate apply to store-bought pie dough, too.

How To Pit Cherries Without A Cherry Pitter

We have a small kitchen. That means that we only buy what we need on a weekly basis and while we would love to eat a slice of this cherry pie every night that just cant happen. So, we dont have a cherry pitter in the house. That didnt stop us, though. We just looked around and figured out two ways to pit cherries without a cherry pitter.

On the top, youll see we used a chopstick. We used the thicker round end to push the pit out of each cherry. The second option was to use a small piping tip. Place it onto the work surface then push the cherry down onto the tip the pit pops right out. Of the two, we preferred using chopsticks. Both work, but the chopsticks were a little less messy.

Recipe updated, originally posted May 2013. Since posting this in 2013, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear and added a quick recipe video. Adam and Joanne

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How To Make The Strawberry Filling

We really like to use fresh strawberries for this. Start by mashing about 2 cups of strawberries. Add some sugar, corn starch and extra flavors then cook until bubbly and thick. Thats your strawberry glaze.

Then, toss with more strawberries and add to the baked and cooled pie crust. Refrigerate for a few hours then top with whipped cream.

Recipe updated, originally posted May 2013. Since posting this in 2013, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear and added a quick recipe video. Adam and Joanne

Classic Double Pie Crust

There are probably as many pie crust recipes out there as there are bakers. Many of us struggle with pie crust this crust is a good go-to recipe for those of you who haven’t yet settled on a favorite. Easy to roll, buttery-tasting, and somewhere between flaky/crumbly, it’s like an old friend: reliable and forgiving. This recipe makes two crusts, enough for a double-crust pie or two single-crust pies.

Ingredients

Crust

• 2 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or 2 1/2 cups Pastry Flour Blend
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt*
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 10 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter
• 6 to 10 tablespoons ice water**

*Reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon if you use salted butter.**Use the lesser amount of water if you use Pastry Flour Blend.

Topping

Instructions

Tips from our Bakers

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How To Make Pie Crust From Scratch

Homemade pie crust isnt hard to make, and its so much better than the store-bought stuff! The dough comes together in just a few minutes, and its very easy to shape and manipulate.

Cut Butter: Cut the cold butter into 1/2-inch thick cubes. It should be fresh from the fridge.

Combine Flour, Salt & Butter: Combine the flour, salt and butter in a food processor. Pulse several times until the mixture is crumbly, but still has large chunks of butter.

Add Egg, Vinegar & Water: Add the egg, vinegar and 2 teaspoons of ice cold water. Pulse until the dough begins to hold together. If needed, add additional water 1 teaspoon at a time.

Flatten Dough & Chill: Turn the dough out onto the counter. Press it into a ball, then flatten it into a disc about 5 inches wide. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for a minimum of 60 minutes.

Form Crust: Roll the dough onto a lightly floured surface, rolling from the center to the edges and rotating occasionally. Roll it out so its about 11 inches in diameter, leaving you at least 1 inch on each side of the pie plate.

Prep for Filling & Chill: Place the dough into a 9-inch pie plate and fold under the excess edges, then crimp the edges. Refrigerate the dough while you prepare your pie filling.

The Apples We Use For Apple Pie

To make this apple pie, we use approximately 4 pounds of apples. For the best apple flavor, try adding more than one variety of apple to your pie.

We especially love these varieties of apples for baked desserts and pie:

• Granny Smith Your standard, never-fails baking apple. Tart, crisp, and they keep their structure after time in the oven.
• Honeycrisp Extra crisp and always holds firm after baking. One of our favorites!
• Jonagold Tart with a bit of sweetness. They also hold up well in the oven.
• Braeburn Crisp, sweet apples that hold up well in pie and other baked desserts.
• Mutsu Big apples that look like a large Golden Delicious. Has a sweet honeyed flavor and holds up well in pie.
• Pink Lady A good balance of sweet and tart. Will also hold its shape when baked.
• Golden Delicious Sweet and flavorful apple thats very versatile. Will hold up in pie, but will become softer than some of the varieties mentioned above.
• Jazz Sweet and crisp flavor. Will hold up nicely in pie.

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How To Roll Out Pie Crust

After the dough has chilled, start preparing your pie. Roll out the crust. Always use gentle force. You are not mad at the crust. When rolling dough out, always start from the center and work your way out in all directions, turning the dough with your hands as you go.

Turn, roll, turn, roll.

Roll the dough to fit a 9-inch pie dish. I typically roll the dough into a 12-inch circle so that there is enough crust to go up the edges of the dish and so I can trim and flute.

Do NOT be overwhelmed. I made sure to break everything down very easily, so a lot of the text in this recipe is me being as thorough as possible. Be sure to read through additional tips and troubleshooting below. Let me know about your pie adventures!

• Total Time:2 hours, 15 minutes
• Yield:2 pie crusts

• 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cubed
• 3/4 cup vegetable shortening, chilled
• 1/2 cup ice water

Perfect Pie Crust Tip : Keep Everything Cold

Not only should the butter be cold, the water that you use should also be coldactually ICE WATER is best! I measure out my water for the recipe and pop in a few ice cubes to make sure its as cold as possible.

You can even chill your bowl if you want!

You can even use frozen butter if youre in a warm climate. This is a great trick and works perfectly, because if you are trying to make an all butter pie crust in a humid or warm place the butter can soften up pretty quickly, so just pop it in the freezer 30-ish minutes before youre going to make your crust.

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How To Roll Out Pie Dough

When youre ready to make your pie, lightly dust your work surface and rolling pin with flour. This will prevent the dough from sticking.

Starting in the center of the disc, use even pressure to roll out your dough, always starting from the center and rolling out. Turn the dough about a quarter turn after each roll and dust the dough and counter as needed to prevent sticking.

Continue until you have a circle about 12 to 14 inches in diameter and about 1/8 inch thick. This is perfect for a 9 in. pie.

If youre making a larger or smaller pie, roll your dough to be about 3 to 5 inches larger than your pie pan so you have enough overhang to form the pie edge.

Place the pie crust on your prepared pan, pressing it into the sides and bottom of the pan.

For open-faced pies: Fill your crust with your prepared filling. Garnish with additional dough cut-outs, if desired. Bake as directed.

For double-crust pies: Fill bottom crust with prepared filling. Place second crust on top. Use knife to cut small holes in top crust to allow steam to vent. Crimp edges of pie as desired. Bake as directed.

What Is A Pie Shield

If you plan on baking pie, a pie shield will be your best friend. I went for years without one, scraping together aluminum foil to create a makeshift shield to prevent my pie crust from browning too much.

BUT the little handy pie shield invention is a SUPER simple tool to make sure your crust doesnt get too brown. Theyre cheap, and so worth it in my opinion!

Heres the link to the one I have if youre interested. I know they make silicone ones now, and I am sure they work great too! Just make sure youre buying the right size for the pie plate you have!

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How To Blind Bake Pie Crust

Follow these par baking steps if you are making a pie that needs to be baked for 40 minutes or longer once filled. If the pie you are making will not be baked once filled, or baked for 30 minutes or less, then the pie crust should be fully baked see next section.