A Pie Crust Tutorial

When you go to make any flaky dough, the basic procedure is to cut butter into dry ingredients (literally cut it into smaller pieces) and add ice water until the dough comes together. It seems simple--and it is--but pie crust is 99% about technique, so that’s what we’ll talk about.

Before we get into specific procedure, let’s talk a little bit about the mechanics. It will give you a better sense of what’s going on and put your fears to rest. The structure of your ideal flaky pastry is basically very thin and haphazard layers of dough and butter--think about puff pastry or croissant dough, only messier. A good flaky crust relies on this dough-butter-dough arrangement, and to get that you need your butter to stay in cold, hard, not-melting into the dough pieces. The butter is sort of an unwilling participant; it’s there, but it’s certainly not going to mingle. When the dough is rolled out, what were chunks of butter become layers which puff up and make your dough flaky. Like magic.

But flaky isn’t the only thing that we’re shooting for. You’d probably like your dough to be tender too. This is a gluten or flour issue. When you knead bread, you do so to encourage the development of gluten--the protein which gives dough its strength. So quite simply, with anything you’d like to be tender, do the opposite and manipulate the dough as little as possible. After you add your water, resist all impulses to overhandle the dough. This is difficult for perfectionists because it means that the dough will have cracks and ragged edges. But that’s exactly what you want.

So, our goals are flaky and tender; now, how to achieve them.

Flaky Pastry
makes enough for 2-single crust or 1-double crust pie

10 oz. all-purpose flour (2 cups)
8 oz. unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into 1/2” cubes and chilled
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
ice water

In a large bowl, either with two butter knives or a pastry cutter, cut the cold, diced butter into the flour, salt and sugar. You want the pieces of butter to be large enough to create layers, but not so large they create gaping holes in your baked product. We recommend shooting for “lentil-sized” as your average, so having some bigger pieces is okay. If you get to a point (and as it is summer, you can reach this point quickly), where the butter ceases to feel cold and firm, and instead loses its shape and seems to be melting into the dough--stop. Put the bowl in the fridge for 15-20 minutes and come back when the butter feels firm again.

When you’ve reached a good size on the butter pieces, add ice water little by little (think a couple of tablespoons) and mix. We like to use a sort of tossing motion which distributes the water without overworking the dough. You’ll be tempted to add too much water, so be careful--you want just enough so that the dough hangs together when pressed. The first picture to the left shows our dough with the proper amount of water in it.

Gently and with minimal handling, press the dough into a raggedy ball. (See second picture) Leave edges unsmoothed, leave crumbs unmixed, it will all be okay. Divide the dough in half and pat it into two flat circles (third photo). Wrap your dough and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight--this allows the butter to firm up and the gluten to relax, making your dough both more flaky and more tender.

When you go to roll out your dough, the same principles apply as when you were mixing. Keep the dough cold, and handle it as little as possible. If the dough gets too warm, the butter will start to melt and gone will be all of the layers you worked so hard to create. If the dough starts to get too warm, slide it on a pan, and put it back in the fridge.

At this point, our work here is done. Your dough will be beautiful, we promise. Now, we’re sure you have some lovely pie recipes, so go forth, and bake.