Easy Flaky Pie Crust Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How to make a flaky bottom pie crust? ›

Brush the Bottom with Corn Syrup or Egg White

Adding a layer of corn syrup or a slightly beaten egg white before pouring in the filling will form a seal between the pie dough and the filling and will help make the crust crisp and flaky.

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.

Apple cider vinegar is added to relax the gluten proteins in your dough and tenderize it. You can also substitute it with an equal amount of white vinegar. Cold Water: For pie crusts that are flaky, cold water is a must.

Shortening is better at crumbly crust, butter is better at flaky. But you can get either from both. There are obvious differences in flavor, and butter can give you a very nice chewiness in a crust while still being tender. Butter also tends to shrink and lose shape/detail more when it bakes.

You do not need to pre-bake a pie crust for an apple pie or any baked fruit pie really, but we do freeze the dough to help it stay put. Pre-baking the pie crust is only required when making a custard pie OR when making a fresh fruit pie. you should probably get: Pie weights are super helpful to have for pre-baking.

Work Quickly to Keep the Ingredients Cool

Warm butter will be absorbed by the flour instead of coating it, resulting in a tougher, less flaky crust. Once you take the butter out of the fridge, work quickly to make the pie crust. Refrigerate the dough between each step.

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.

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.

Bread flour contains more gluten than all-purpose flour, making it ideal for bread but not ideal for pastry. Since you don't want to activate too much gluten in pie crust dough—the gluten can make it tough and less flaky—a lower gluten flour like all-purpose is better.

How long should you chill pie dough before rolling out? ›

I always chill my dough for at least 2 hours before rolling out, and then chill again for at least 1 hour after shaping in the pie pan. There are undoubtedly faster methods out there, but this is what I've found to work best for me in terms of maintaining pretty crimps and the overall shape of the crust.

The Pie Crust Takeaways

Butter made a tastier, flakier, sturdier crust by far. This isn't to say that shortening and lard aren't useful ingredients. Shortening is a great way to get incredibly tender desserts. It's part of what makes these pumpkin whoopie pies so delectable.

Is Pastry Dough the Same as Pie Dough? Pastry and pie doughs are very similar and can often be used interchangeably. A classic pie crust has a spoonful of sugar to sweeten and tenderize the dough, but both recipes have a buttery flavor and flaky texture.

First, you have to understand what makes a pie crust—or any dough for that matter—flaky. Pieces of fat (like butter) get trapped between layers of starch in a dough, then melt rapidly in the oven heat, creating steam and little pockets of air in the dough where the butter chunks used to be.

The pros: Lard produces an extremely crisp, flaky crust. It's also easy to work with, as its melting point is higher than butter, so it doesn't soften as quickly while you handle it, or threaten to dissolve into the flour as quickly as butter before baking. The cons: Good quality rendered leaf lard is hard to find.

Problem: Your Pastry is Hard and Tough

You've added too much water to the flour but not enough fat. It is important to keep the pastry cool during rolling and the oven needs to be hot.