Perfect Pie Crust

Please, never buy another pre-made pie crust again. Perfect pie crust is easy to make once you know how, especially if you keep your ingredients simple. And guess what; you don't need anything more than flour, salt, butter, and water to make a crust that is tender and flaky. I learned how to make my crust from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book (I recommend picking up a copy — this book is great for getting down the basics and is a virtual encyclopedia for anything you've ever wanted to bake). This recipe is my adaptation after years of experimenting and yields enough dough for what I call "two-crust plus" — a two-crust pie dough with plenty of overhang for crust decorations or "oops" moments.

What you'll need:

Food processor

Kitchen scale

Rolling pin

Dry measuring cups and spoons

Liquid measuring cup or small bowl

Parchment paper

Cling wrap

Ingredients:

3 ⅓ c. Flour

¾ tsp. Salt

9 oz. Butter

8-10 Tb. Cold Water

Ingredients in depth:

Quality of your ingredients matters, especially when your recipe only has four components. Take the extra step and get good ingredients. Trust me, it will make a huge difference in the outcome of your crust (and will even make up for any imperfections).

I recommend King Arthur Flour as a great all-purpose flour. I buy butter in blocks, hence the weight measurements, and the reason I do is because of Hope Creamery Butter. This butter makes the crust; it literally smells and tastes sweet. This is local to Minnesota, so if you can't find it, I'd recommend going with a butter local to you. Check the package. Is it made from just sweet cream and salt? Then you're good to go. With salt, I'm a little less picky, but I prefer Morton's All Natural Sea Salt for the consistency and lack of additives. Filtered water is best — I run mine through a Brita filter before using.

Preparation:

1. Measure out flour and salt and place directly in the bowl of your food processor. To properly measure flour, scoop it into your measuring cup with a spoon until it is heaped over the top, then take a knife or other flat utensil and level it off. Let it stay fluffy, don't pack.

You'll want to make sure you're using the sharp, cutting blade, not the plastic dough blade, which is for bread. Cover and pulse a few times to mix.

2. Weigh your butter. 9 oz. of butter is about two and a quarter sticks. If you don't have a kitchen scale and want to go by a different unit of measurement, I love this online butter converter.

Many recipes call for unsalted butter. I find that it doesn't really make a difference, and I end up with a bunch of leftover unsalted butter that can't be used for your everyday butter needs.  Go with the regular, salted butter and rejoice that you can use it on your toast the next day.

3. Chop butter into small pieces and add to your food processor. Make sure butter is COLD.  If you have to put butter back into the fridge after weighing and chopping, do so. Achieving a flaky crust depends on keeping your butter cold.

4. Pulse a couple dozen times until the mixture starts to look coarse and mealy. Check for large lumps and pulse a few more times if you find any. Butter pieces should be no larger than a pea.

5. Prepare a small bowl of ice water. I prefer to use a liquid measuring cup for ease of handling, but it's not necessary. Only a few cubes are needed. You want to be able to easily spoon the water out.

6. Add about 3 tablespoons of ice water to the flour and butter mixture in your food processor. Pulse a few times to disperse. Add a few more tablespoons and pulse. After that, add tablespoons one at a time and pulse once or twice. Keep doing so until mixture is just moistened throughout. Remember, you don't want to mix the dough or let it form in your food processor. You just want to moisten it.

The amount of water you need will vary, depending on the time of year, how dry your kitchen is, humidity, and other factors. Add enough so that that the dough just starts to form small clumps and pull away from the sides of the bowl as pictured. Too much water at this stage will cause your dough to toughen.

7. Turn dough mixture out onto a piece of parchment paper. You can turn it out right onto your table or counter, but I find the parchment paper helps contain the mess.

Mixture will still look very crumbly with some pieces clumping together.

8. Separate the mixture in two and gently smoosh each portion into a lump. This will be your top and bottom crusts. DO NOT KNEAD. The goal is to form a ball of pressed-together dough without working it. Simply cup your hands around the sides and smoosh. The majority of the dough will stick together easily.

You'll still have some dry spots and crumbles. Scoop up and slap any crumbly bits onto the gently formed ball. At this point, you can use a few drops of ice water to make the crumbles stick.

Here is a pressed-together ball. Notice there's still plenty of cracks, lumps, and indentations. That's fine! If your dough looks perfectly smooth at this point, you've overworked it, and it will be tough.

You should be able to see lighter spots in the ball as well. That's your butter. Another reason to keep from over-working your pie dough is that you want the pieces of butter to remain intact. When the dough is baked, those bits of butter will melt and leave little pockets of space behind. That's where your flakiness comes from.

9. Wrap each dough ball in cling wrap and place in the fridge.  I find that when I'm working with real butter as opposed to shortening or other fats, the dough chills pretty quickly. A half hour in the fridge should be good (while you prepare your filling). However, you can keep the dough in the fridge for a day or two until you need it, or even freeze it at this point.

10. Remove dough from fridge when you're ready to use it, and place it on a lightly floured surface. If the dough has been refrigerated for a long time, you may need to let it warm up ever so slightly. You do not want it to be room temperature, but you should be able to push it down into a disc and start rolling it out without too much trouble.

Roll from the middle out towards the sides in a clockwise (our counterclockwise, take your pick) pattern, trying to keep the dough even and circular. Edges will be ragged, but that is fine! Use short, firm strokes with the rolling pin. Marble is definitely best for pie dough as it keeps the butter nice and chilled, but use what you have. I do not recommend rolling out your dough between parchment paper; it's more difficult and you have less control over the shaping. Plus, a little flour never hurt anyone.

The more practice you have with rolling out dough, the more easily you will be able to make a nice round crust. If you start to get a funny shape, just keep going. The great thing about the "two-crust plus" recipe is that your dough will be plenty big enough to trim off any odd parts once you get it into your pie plate. Whatever you do, don't reform and try to roll out again if you mess up. This will toughen your dough. You can always trim and patch once you get it into the plate!

Use the dough for pie recipe of your choice and enjoy the flaky tenderness of real butter!

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“As for butter versus margarine, I trust the cows more than chemists.”
― Joan Dye Gussow