EASY Pie Crust Recipe - Step by Step! (and only 3 Ingredients!) (2024)

FAQs

What are 3 tips for making pie crust? ›

The 3:2:1 ratio – with three parts flour, two parts fat, and one part water – creates a dough that is easy to work with and makes for a flaky pastry crust.

On paper, classic pie dough is a mind-bogglingly simple recipe. Combine flour with a bit of salt and sugar, cut in some butter, lard, and/or shortening, then add just enough cold water to get it to come together into a disk. Roll it out and bake. That's it.

You Can Use Vodka In Pie Crust, Too

Vodka is also thought to discourage gluten formation, meaning that pie dough made with it will turn out more tender, pliable, and easily workable. Give it a try in our top-rated Vodka Pie Crust recipe.

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.

Pie Crust Ingredients

Flour: This flaky pie crust recipe starts with all-purpose flour. Salt: A pinch of salt enhances the flavor and promotes a tender, moist crust. Butter: Cold butter adds rich flavor and creates steam as it melts, ensuring a perfectly flaky finished product.

One mistake novice pie bakers make is letting the raw pie crust come to room temperature, which can ruin its flaky texture. "Make sure to refrigerate your pie crust before baking it off," Sarah Fennel says.

The acidic properties of vinegar inhibit gluten, some will say. This theory proposes that once the water and flour are combined, gluten starts forming, causing the dough to grow tough. Adding an acid, the theory goes, stops the gluten in its tracks and rescues the crust from toughness.

What does adding egg to pie crust do? ›

Sugar: Not all pie crusts have sugar, but those that do will be more tender since sugar interferes with gluten development. In our experience, sugar can also make the pie dough so tender that it's hard to roll out and transfer to your pan without breaking. Egg: This makes the dough more pliable and easy to roll out.

Traditionally, what you're looking for in a pie crust are three basic things: you want it to be fully cooked through, without any doughiness between the filling and the bottom crust, you want the crust to be light and flaky with discernible layers, and, of course, you want there to be a rich, buttery flavor.