Flaky Pie Crust
This recipe makes enough dough for one 23 cm (9 inch) covered pie. If your pie only requires a bottom crust, use half this recipe. However, for best results, make the full recipe.
90 min · serves 1
Ingredients
- 310 g (2 ½ cups) flour
- 6 g (1 tsp) salt
- 4 g (1 tsp) white granulated sugar (optional)
- 225 g (1 cup) cold butter
- 95 ml (⅓ cup + 1 tbsp) cold water
Steps
- Whisk flour, salt and sugar together in a deep bowl.
- Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the flour mixture.
- Using a pastry blender or two butter knives, cut the butter into the flour until the butter is in small pea-sized pieces.
- Add cold water; cut the water into the flour-butter mixture with the edge of a rubber spatula until it is evenly moistened and will hold together when pressed.
- Form the dough into a ball with your hands, kneading in any loose flour. This should be done as quickly as possible to avoid melting the butter in the dough.
- Chill the dough for 10–20 minutes.
- Cut the dough evenly in half.
- On a lightly floured board, roll each half out until it will cover a 20 cm (9 inch) pie dish, with about 2 cm (¾" inch) overhang.
- Lay the bottom crust in the pie dish, ensuring that there are no gaps between the crust and the bottom of the dish.
- Fill the crust with the pie filling.
- Place the top crust on top, leaving equal overhang on all sides.
- Cut the overhang to about 2 cm (¾" inch) all around the pie.
- Working around the pie, hold the bottom and top crust overhangs together and tuck the combined overhang into the pie dish behind the bottom crust.
- With the forefinger and thumb of each hand, pinch the ridge formed by the tuck into a decorative edge, or press this ridge with a fork.
- Brush the top of the pie with milk, and sprinkle with sugar.
- Cut vents in the top crust so that steam can escape.
- For a fruit pie, bake on the lower-middle rack of an oven at 220 °C (425 °F) for 30 minutes to set the crust, then at 180 °C (350 °F) for 30 minutes to cook the filling.
More recipes with flour or butter
Adapted from “Flaky Pie Crust” in the Wikibooks Cookbook by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Reformatted for this site; this page's recipe text is shared under the same license.