I never thought I’d make enough pie crusts to warrant a go-to recipe. Pie crust always seemed far too scary to become something I’d make on a regular basis. But here I am, makin’ pie crust in my sleep and bloggin’ about it.
One thing that always intimidated me when I first started making pie crust was when cookbooks and recipe sites gave vague directions like “don’t overmix the dough” without even explaining what that meant! Even when I started writing up this recipe last week, I had a line in there that said: “Be careful not to overmix the dough.” Shame on me.
So here’s what overmixing does to pie dough , and a few other mysteries of pie crust explained (with help from Gail Sokol’s Professional Baking):
Gluten is a type of protein found in wheat products. When that protein comes into contact with water and is mixed, the gluten starts to develop, which helps give structure to baked products. Overhandling the dough causes the gluten strands to tighten like a rubber band that’s been stretched too far, resulting in a tough dough instead of a tender and flaky one, as pie crust should be. That’s one reason many pastry crusts call for all-purpose flour–it contains fewer proteins and develops less gluten as a result. It is also why water should be sprinkled in a tablespoon at a time instead of poured in all at once. Because the gluten doesn’t develop until the protein comes into contact with water, the less water that’s added, the more tender the end product will be.
So when a recipe for pie crust tells you not to overmix, that basically means you should mix the ingredients just until they come together into a ball.
Here are a few other explanations of the mysteries of making pie crust:
1. Why should the butter (or other fat) be cold?
It prevents it from melting too quickly in the oven and increases flakiness in the crust. Freeze the cubed butter for 1 hour before adding them to the food processor, and less time if you’re adding it by hand (20 minutes).
2. Why should the water be cold?
Using ice water prevents the pieces of fat from warming up and melting into the dough before baking.
3. Why rest the dough before rolling it out?
Resting the dough helps relax the gluten, making the dough easier to roll out. It also firms up the fat so it doesn’t melt into the dough before baking.
To sum up, the reason it’s worthwhile to bother with all these fussy techniques like chilling butter and not overmixing is they help us achieve buttery, flaky pie crust. And is there anything better than that?
Go-to pie crust
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2 sticks butter, cold
2 1/2 cups AP flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon salt
5-6 tablespoons ice water
Method: With a very sharp paring knife, cut the butter into roughly 1/4-inch cubes. Put the butter cubes in the freezer right away to chill them, and keep them in there until you’re ready to make the crust.
In a food processor pulse together the flour and salt 4 or 5 times. Add the butter, and pulse 10-12 times until the butter is the size of small pebbles, with a few pea-size pieces throughout.
Add the ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, pulsing in between, just until the dough starts to form a ball.
Plop the dough onto the counter after lightly dusting it with flour. Quickly form the dough into a cylinder.
Note: I like this step. You could just pack the dough into any old shape, but the idea here is to form the dough into the shape you ultimately want it to be when you roll it out. Since I’m making a pie, I want the crust to be round, so I formed it into a cylinder.
Tightly wrap it in plastic wrap, put it in the fridge and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
Sprinkle the counter with flour and place the dough on it. Working from the center out, roll out the dough until it’s 1/4-inch thick. I like to flip it a few times so it doesn’t stick. A helpful tool to use here is a plastic dough or bowl scraper, because it helps you gingerly scrape the dough off the work surface.
Brush off any clumps of flour that may have formed on the surface of the dough. To transfer the dough to the pie shell, place the rolling pin over the edge of the dough. Lift up the end and lightly start wrapping it around your rolling pin. Don’t press down on the dough, or it will stick. Keep doing this until the dough is all rolled up.
Place the end of the rolled dough over the pie shell, leaving about 1 1/2 inches of overhang, and carefully unravel it over the pie shell. You might have to shift it around a bit to center it.
Carefully push the dough into the corners and sides of the pie shell, smoothing out any ripples. Trim the dough overhang down to about 1 inch all around with a pair of scissors or sharp paring knife.
Working your way around, tuck the dough overhang back on itself, pressing lightly; then pinch a little dough between two fingers to crimp it, leaving about 1 inch between each crimp.
This pie dough is great for all kinds of sweet and savory applications, from sweet fruit and cream pies to pot pie and quiche. If you want to sweeten it up a bit, add a scant 2 teaspoons sugar to the above recipe. Add it at the same time as your salt.
