Grandma's Perfect Pie Crust - The Recipe Critic (2024)

FAQs

Is pie crust better with butter or crisco? ›

“My preferred fat for pie crusts will always be butter. To me, it is all about flavor, and no other fat gives flavor to a crust like butter does. Other fats, even though they have great pros, lack flavor,” De Sa Martins said. “The more flavorful the butter, the more flavor your pie crust will have,” Huntsberger added.

#2—Add cold water

Before you start making the dough, fill a glass with ice and water. Add the ice water gradually to the dough, about one tablespoon or so at a time, and stop when the dough is just moist enough to hold together when a handful is squeezed.

But there are two much more important perks to using vinegar: it provides a little insurance against overworking the dough. And, that splash of vinegar will keep your dough from oxidizing and turning gray.

PIE DOUGH RULES

As important as not overmixing is staying chilled, literally!! That means keeping all elements cold— your counter, ingredients, hands, heart (just kidding!). No, but seriously, cut up your butter into little cubes and chill them before you incorporate them into the flour.

If the butter is too warm, it will combine too well into the flour, making the dough hard to work with and the final crust tough or cracker-like. If you've had problems with your pie crust recipe, chances are the butter's to blame. Here's how to keep it under control: Start with cold butter, straight from the fridge.

The number one tip most pie dough recipes will emphasize is using cold butter, cold water, cold hands—really cold everything. The colder the butter (or shortening) stays in the dough, the more it can stay self-contained until it hits the oven, creating bigger pockets of air.

Though the science is sketchy, a few professional pie bakers swear that it improves the texture of the crust, and they wouldn't dream of making pie dough without it. (Others swear by similarly acidic ingredients like lemon juice.) The acidic properties of vinegar inhibit gluten, some will say.

The cons: Butter can be harder to work with than lard or shortening because of its lower melting point, so the dough temperature has to be just right. If it gets too warm, it will be too soft to handle and will tear easily. Butter is a firmer fat, so if it's too cold, your dough will be more difficult to roll out.

Whether you use a food processor, a stand mixer, or your hands to incorporate the ingredients together, overmixing is a common mistake that leads to a chewy crust. It's tempting when baking to combine the ingredients completely, but the texture should resemble a coarse meal before adding your liquid.

What kind of flour makes the best pie crust? Well, not high-protein bread flour! Use that for your chewy bagels. What you want for pie is flour that yields a tender, flaky crust, which means medium-protein all-purpose flour or low-protein pastry flour.

Should butter be cold when making pie crust? ›

In order to ensure that the finished crust is super flaky, pie crust always starts with cold butter. That way, the butter will remain in solid chunks in the dough that evaporate into layers during baking. Good!

In our experience, sugar can also make the pie dough so tender that it's hard to roll out and transfer to your pan without breaking. Egg: This makes the dough more pliable and easy to roll out. Eggs also make the crust more compact.

Wrapping the crust edge is recommended for all kinds of pies: fruit pies and meat pies, frozen and fresh, homemade and store-bought. Without wrapping the crust, the edges will likely burn if you try to bake the pie until the center crust is browned. The crust edge is thinner and easily burns.

The more solid the butter remains before it's baked, the flakier your crust will be. Add some baking powder to the dough. The leavener helps lift and aerate the crust, allowing it to expand into the dish while it bakes. Use a food processor to mix the dry ingredients and butter.

Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, or up to overnight. Tip: Chilling hardens the fat in the dough, which will help the crust maintain its structure as it bakes. And the short rest before rolling relaxes the dough's gluten, helping prevent a tough crust.

Traditionally, what you're looking for in a pie crust are three basic things: you want it to be fully cooked through, without any doughiness between the filling and the bottom crust, you want the crust to be light and flaky with discernible layers, and, of course, you want there to be a rich, buttery flavor.

Adding more flour is always an option, but add too much flour and your dough will end up like a cracker—not a pie crust. Remember: The more you mix your pie dough, the tougher it becomes. To keep the mixing to a minimum, try rolling out your dough between two pieces of parchment paper.

With docking, the holes allow steam to escape, so the crust should stay flat against the baking dish when it isn't held down by pie weights or a filling. Otherwise the crust can puff up, not only impacting appearance but also leaving you with less space for whatever filling you have planned.

Chilling the ingredients prevents the butter from melting, which would allow the water in the butter to interact with the gluten in the flour, resulting in a less-flaky, more bread-like dough. The ideal temperature is usually “room temperature”—generally considered to be 68-72°F.

In pie crust, you don't want gluten to form so you don't want to mix too much and overwork the dough. For a flaky crust, cut the butter so that chunks of butter about the size of walnut halves remain. The chunks of cold butter create the layers in the dough.

Is pie crust better with shortening or butter? ›

Butter for flakiness and flavor, and shortening for its high melting point and ability to help the crust hold shape. You can use butter-flavor shortening if desired. If you want to skip the shortening, feel free to try this all-butter pie crust instead.

Don't worry about making it perfect, especially if it's just for family. It'll tastes good no matter how it looks. Why do you put vinegar in pie crust? It makes the pie crust exceedingly tender and flaky.

Cookies Made with Butter vs Shortening

Those made with only shortening bake higher and spread less during baking. The butter cookie provides better flavor and a crispier exterior with browning around edges and a chewy interior; the shortening cookie spreads less, holding its shape better while baking.

The pie dough isn't given enough time to relax and chill

The pie crust could have a firm or tough texture if you bake your pie before resting your dough. Giving your dough time to rest will allow all the ingredients to chill, help the moisture distribute more evenly throughout the dough, and make it easier to roll out.

Liquid Water, vodka, and milk or buttermilk are commonly-used liquids in pie crust, sometimes with a few teaspoons of white or cider vinegar or lemon juice. Water is the most traditional, but some people like to mix in up to 50% vodka because alcohol helps to tenderize the dough.

Both Kerrygold and Plugra scored high when making pie dough and had a luscious mouthfeel when tasted solo. But overall, the flavor and creaminess of Kerrygold won because of it's (very) slight grassy taste.