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Pie Crust
Updated Nov. 2, 2023
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- Total Time
- 15 minutes, plus chilling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1¼cups all-purpose flour (150 grams)
- ¼teaspoon fine sea salt
- 10tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
- 2 to 4tablespoons ice water, as needed
Preparation
- Step 1
In a food processor, pulse together the flour and salt. Add butter and pulse until the mixture forms lima bean-size pieces. Slowly add ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse until the dough just comes together. It should be moist, but not wet.
- Step 2
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gather into a ball. Flatten into a disk with the heel of your hand. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
- For the best results, use a high-fat, European-style unsalted butter like Plugra.
- You can experiment with textures and flavors by substituting 3 to 4 tablespoons shortening, lard, beef suet, duck fat or an unsweetened nut butter, such as hazelnut butter, almond butter or mixed nut butter, for 3 to 4 tablespoons regular butter. All should be well chilled before using.
- Or make a crispy cheddar crust, which pairs nicely with apple pie or savory pie fillings: Pulse together 1¼ cups flour with ¾ teaspoon salt. Add ¾ cup grated sharp cheddar; pulse until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Add 8 tablespoons chilled, cubed butter and proceed according to the directions above.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Melissa, so I have a question...you recommend baking this crust in advance, then filling and baking again. What if the pie recipe calls for an unbaked pie crust? Different crust? Use the same crust but don't double bake? Or double bake anyway?
Please consider adding all weight measures to baking recipes. You state a weight for flour but not the other ingredients.
I used this recipe for a quiche today. I blind baked the shell at 375 for about 25 minutes (per Melissa Clark's accompanying video), then filled in with the quiche filling and baked. I had outstanding results on the crust: crisp, not soggy on the bottom. I must now bake an apple pie!
Love this chef and her ways . . . but shame ! What temperature and for how long does one cook this crust
?
A tablespoon of butter is 1/2 ounce.
So 10 tbs. = 5oz. = 141.747616 gm. Hope this helps.
50/50 unsalted butter and cream cheese...That's the kind of pie you scrape out the filling and just eat crust.
Wish You would add alternative instructions for those of us who cook without food processors and other speciality equipment. Imagine one knife one bowl and a dream
per America's Test Kitchen, I added about 1/8 c vodka to dough - made it easier to handle. Nice.
Doubling the recipe didn't end up that well in the food processor --easier to just do it one pie crust at a time.
You can easily make this by hand. Just rub butter between your fingers with the flour/salt mixture until it looks like sand with some bigger pea size bits. Be sure your butter is VERY cold. Then only add enough water to hold the dough together. Dump the contents of the bowl onto a sheet of Saran Wrap, use the corners to "fraiser" or use the heel of your hand to form the dough into a flattened bowl/disk. Fold corners of film onto the disk and refrigerate. Very easy, easy cleaning.
Greetings, Melissa: I'm interested in why you chose a metal pie tin. Do you like that better than glass? Also, why not chill the bottom crust, prick it with a fork, then fill, add the top crust, and bake? It's tricky to get the bottom crust right -- but blind baking is not so easy. With all those pennies the bottom crust doesn't bake. I'm just curious about your choices here, and your experience with different techniques and pie tins. Thank you!
Substitute orange juice for the water. The acid does something to the gluten in the flour and the crust is amazing!
You have to let the dough return to room temperature before rolling out.
The baking instructions are included in the accompanying pie recipes--this crust is a step in making the pie. Bakes differently for different pies.
Sub 2 Tbsp vodka (cold if possible, cheap is fine) for 2 Tbsp of the water.
How am I supposed to take 10 tablespoons of butter and then cut it into cubes? It would be spoon-shaped already. Grams would help so much! Please consider it for the next recipes
8 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp shortening Need to double to make top and bottom crust
Where are instructions for baking?
This was my third butter pie crust recipe from NY Times. And by FAR the best! Flaky and buttery. Followed recipe exactly. Important to keep these butter crusts cold.
My Mom was known for her pie crusts. They were flaky and delicious but they were made with margarine. I make pies frequently and this crust is delicious and takes 2 minutes to make (plus chilling). The one trick of Mom’s is to make several at a time. I make several double batches. Then, after chilled, I roll them out, put in pie pans (I use foil ones) place wax paper over that one, repeat and stack until you have what you’ve made. Place in zip lock freezer bags ready for the next time!
This recipe is delicious. I've learned, however, that you have to be careful with how thin you roll the dough. I used a deep-dish pie pan and learned that if the dough is too thin, it can't hold the pie filling well. Depending on the size of your pie shell and your taste preferences, a thicker crust was much better for both the top and bottom layers (I made a cherry pie).
My lifelong struggle with pie dough is over! I followed every tip in Melissa’s video the reader suggestion for one crust at a time in the food processor. A perfect peach pie, with no soggy bottom. And…easy as pie!
350 convection
I used a mini food processor - 4 TB shortening, 6 TB butter and 4 TB ice water, patted into a 6" disk and chilled for an hour. Rolled into a 10" round on my unfloured silicone pie crust sheet, then rolled around my rolling pin and transferred onto the top of the pie. I am usually very hesitant to make pie crust but this was easy peasy, no sticking, no cracking and baked into a delicious, flaky crust.
Too much butter 10tbs is excessive. "Lima bean-sized pieces" start forming around 4-5tbs. For a beginner, it's a harder recipe to understand. Taste wise I've tasted better.
If making single crust pie, prick all over with a fork. Chill for 30 minutes before filling and baking, or blind baking. For 9” pie roll dough into 12” circle.
Used this recipe with Red Mill gluten free flour. Worked really well! Baked the pastry prior to adding the filling and it remained crisp with good texture.
Good tasting, however, the crusts shrinks to much down the sides. Have tried twice
No matter what you do a 1-1/4 cup flour will never make a sufficient 2-crust pie. NEVER. Don't even try. Forget about it. Warning!!
Wow, the cheddar variation is even better than expected. Use the cheddar crust with Martha Rose Shulman's roasted asparagus quiche (you can swap in broccoli when asparagus isn't in season). Keep the scraps, roll out them out and cut them to cracker size and bake alongside the quiche for 12-15 min until golden. So, so good.
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