Basic Butter Pie Crust

This basic butter pie crust recipe is the only one you’ll ever need if you’re looking to make a delicious, flaky butter only crust for your pie. This pie dough recipe works equally well with sweet fruit pies as it does savory pies. Scroll down for tons of tips to make the best pie dough recipe!

The Only Butter Pie Crust Recipe You’ll Ever Need

Pie pastry, when made correctly with high quality ingredients can be a work of art. A properly cooked pie pastry should be so crispy it shatters when you bite it but also be delicate enough that it melts in your mouth. Good pastry, almost like a loaf of sourdough bread, should have a nice balance of flavors being both sweet, without any added sugar, and a bit tangy. For this I add in a bit of apple cider vinegar, which helps balance the flavor while also relaxing the gluten formation.

If you think I’m waxing poetic about pie dough, than you’d be right. There might not be any one thing better to eat in this world than a properly prepared and baked pie pastry. For me it can be just as nuanced as the fanciest French croissant. A good pie pastry is heavenly.

Now I must preface this whole post, that it is stuffed with information, that at the end of the day any homemade pie pastry is much better than store bought. And you don’t need to know all of this information. But after so many years working with pie dough, I’m sharing all that I’ve learned so you can better understand it, if you want to. Want to know just the basics and make the pie dough? Scroll on down to the recipe and everything basic you need is there.Want to learn more about pie dough? Keep reading.

What exactly is pie dough (pâte brisée)?

At its heart a good pie dough, in the pastry world also known as pâte brisée, is a balance of three key ingredients: flour, butter and water. My pie pastry recipe contains a few other ingredients that make it the best it can be, but the aforementioned three are what make up the base of the dough. The water interacts with the flour to form the gluten that creates the structure for the dough. You want to develop just enough gluten formation that it has some strength to hold its shape but not so much that it’s tough. The butter coats the flour, helping to keep the dough together, but it also creates pockets of air once it melts during the cooking process which then creates that flakiness we all love.

Each ingredient added to this pie dough recipe is there for a reason, and with a recipe like this it’s best to follow the instructions as closely as possible. But truth be told? Any homemade pie dough you make is worlds away better than anything you can buy at the store, so don’t be worried if you are a beginner: you’re going to do great!

What are the ingredients for butter pie crust?

My basic pie dough has more than just the three essential ingredients mentioned above. This recipe for pie crust contains:

• All Purpose Flour: Generally speaking pastry flour is the best flour for making pastry because it has a lower protein content. But most people don’t keep it in their kitchen, so for this recipe I call for all-purpose flour.
• Cornstarch: The addition of cornstarch makes the flour mimic pastry flour. You can totally skip this and add in equal parts flour if you wish, but cornstarch helps make this pie dough delicate.
• Salt: All baked good needs salt, period.
• Unsalted butter: Make sure you use good quality butter here! I like unsalted that way you can control the amount of added salted.
• Apple cider vinegar: This helps make the dough tender by inhibiting too much gluten formation and it brings a nice subtle hint of acid to the crust that keeps it nicely balanced.
• Ice water: Water brings the whole thing together, but try to make it cold to help keep the dough all together cold. Honestly when I don’t have ice laying around I’ll just let the tap run for 30 seconds to get water cold and use that.

How do you make pie dough?

Regardless of what method you use to make pie dough, these are the essential steps:

1. Whisk together the dry ingredients so they are thoroughly combined.
2. Combine the butter into the flour evenly, using your hands, a stand mixer or a food processor. You’ll want your butter to be no smaller than the size of a pea and no larger than a marble.
3. Slowly add the wet ingredients until they are evenly combined into the flour, but not so much that it forms a cohesive ball at this stage. If the dough forms a ball, you’ve overworked it.
4. Divide the dough in half, and quickly bring the dough together by squeezing it with your hands.
5. Place in plastic wrap and wrap tightly.
6. Roll out the dough in the plastic wrap to create an airtight seal and let rest at least 2 hours, or better overnight.

What is the best method to make pie dough?

Here are the three different methods you can use to make pie dough, and the pros and cons of each:

By hand:

Pie dough by hand will almost always be flakier than any other method. The reason handmade dough is flakier is because the butter naturally stays in larger pieces than by the other two methods.

Bigger butter chunks = flakier dough

The con of this method is that it is more difficult to evenly hydrate the dough, so you may need to add more water to the dough to get it to come together.

In a stand mixer:

If done properly, making dough in the stand mixer can result in very tender, mildly flaky pie dough. The dough comes together easily in the stand mixer, especially after the water is added, and is much easier to clean up.

The con is that it has the most gluten formation since it’s the most “worked” dough. To adjust for that do not let the machine run for too long once the dough has come together.

The food processor:

This is my preferred method of making pie dough. It isn’t the flakiest method, but it results in the most tender pie dough that is really easy to make with just the push of a button. The dough hydrates easily so you won’t have to add any extra water.

The con is that pie dough made in a food processor isn’t as flaky because the butter tends to break down into smaller pieces. Despite this, I still prefer this method.

Tips for Making All Butter Pie Crust

1. Let the dough rest. I never advise making dough the same day you plan to bake it. It’s essential for the dough to hydrate properly and so the dough should rest at least overnight. If you absolutely need to, you can make the dough and bake it all in the same day, but you must let it rest at least 2 hours before you roll it out. Dough that is made the same day it’s rolled out and baked can be more difficult to handle and possibly deform in the oven because the butter hasn’t chilled enough and the gluten hasn’t had time to relax. It will still taste good, though.
2. Weigh your ingredients! An electronic kitchen scale is not a huge investment. You can get one for around $25. I can’t recommend enough that if you want to get good at baking, get a scale.
3. Use high quality butter and flour. Both of these ingredients can vary wildly in quality. Poor quality butter is going to have a higher water content and less fat. Lower quality flour can vary in the protein structure and that can effect your final pie crust. In the end, I’d still choose a homemade pie crust made with cheap butter and flour over anything store-bought, but if you are looking for a really amazing pie crust buying quality ingredients will help.
4. If you kitchen is hotter than 70 degrees you’ll need to move quickly! Melted butter is the enemy here. I work in a home that doesn’t have air conditioning so in the summer months I have to use the freezer or refrigerator often through the dough making process to ensure my butter doesn’t turn soft. If it’s quite hot in the kitchen I’ll freeze the butter for 15 or so minute before working with it, especially if I’m using the food processor. Soft butter will not allow your dough to come together evenly.
5. The bigger the butter chunks, the flakier your pie will be. If you love the look of super flaky dough, that almost looks like puff pastry, leave at least some of your butter chunks as big as possible. The biggest pieces of butter can be about the size of a marble. See the photo below for handmade pie dough before it’s squeezed together with varying butter sizes. I don’t always want to make super flaky dough, but when I do I make the pie dough by hand for maximum flakiness.
6. Wearing food grade kitchen gloves when making pie dough by hand is helpful! The gloves prevents the dough from sticking to your hands and makes making dough by hand easier. Because I have an allergy to wheat I have to wear kitchen gloves when handling raw flour and discovered that wearing food grade kitchen gloves actually made handling the dough much easier! The dough doesn’t stick to the gloves like it does your bare hands and it kept the butter from getting as warm as it would when it is touched by bare skin, which is by nature quite a bit warmer.

Butter Pie Crust FAQs:

The answers to these questions are useful to know when making pie dough.

Why does the butter need to be cold? You want the butter to stay cold up until the moment it hits the hot oven. Cold butter that is left in chunks will create the flakiest layers. Additionally, melted butter releases liquid into the flour which makes the pastry tough.

What happens if you add to much water to pie crust? You pastry can form too much gluten and be tough. If you have way too much water the dough will be too soft and sticky to roll out, causing you to add more flour than you should when you roll it out.

Why do you put vinegar in the pie dough? This helps make the dough tender by inhibiting too much gluten formation and it brings a nice subtle hint of tanginess to the crust that keeps it nicely balanced.

What is the best type of flour to use for pie crust? Ideally, pastry flour is the best one to use. Since most people don’t keep this readily available at home this recipe adds cornstarch to make a faux-pastry flour.

What could cause a pie crust to be tough? Overworking the dough, adding too much water or rolling it out too many times can all cause a pie crust to be tough.

Storing Pie Dough

As I said above, I don’t recommend making pie dough the same day it needs to be rolled out or baked! Pie dough keeps really well either in the refrigerator or the freezer. But first you need to wrap it well! I use plastic wrap to keep my pie dough. Wrap the pie dough as tightly as you can, and then use a rolling pin to roll out the pie disk and flatten it out so it fills any empty space and essentially makes an air tight seal with the plastic wrap.

You can store it in the refrigerator for 3-4 days or the freezer for up to 3 months. If you plan to store it for an extended period of time than wrap it up twice!

Rolling out Stored Butter Pie Crust

When you are ready to roll out your dough, remove from the refrigerator and place at room temperature for 10-15 minutes. You want the pie dough to warm up slightly so that it is easy to roll out. If the pie dough is too cold it will crack when you roll it out. However, if it is too warm it will be sticky and it will fall apart when you are baking it. You will know the pie dough is ready to roll out when you can easily make a slight indent when you push it in with your finger.

If at any point you feel like your pie dough is too warm, place it back in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.

I typically will place the rolled and shaped pie dough back in the refrigerator before I plan to blind back it or before I bake a fulled filled pie. The crust hold its shape better when it is chilled before baking.

What pie recipes are good for this butter pie crust?

This pie is perfect for classic fruit pies or savory pies that will be served at room temperature or warm. This pie dough is not good for any pie that is to be served cold, like a cream pie. If you are looking for a pie crust that is good for pie that are to be served cold, check out this post.

The reason I don’t recommend using this pie dough for pie meant to be served cold is because it can taste stale when served straight from the refrigerator, the same way a croissant or puff pastry might taste stale when very cold. When a pastry like this is properly made and has a flakiness to it that is achieved by butter, it is going to have its optimum taste when it’s at room temperature. The butter and other ingredients in the crust are best when at room temperature.

Does that mean I’m saying you can never eat an Apple Pie made in this crust straight from the refrigerator? Absolutely not! I know many people love it! But a fruit pie has a lot of juices and it transforms this crust when it is hanging in the refrigerator. But a Coconut Cream Pie or a No Bake Creamsicle doesn’t transform this pastry the same way as an Apple Pie would, and I wouldn’t recommend using this crust on those meant-t0-be-served-cold pies! Instead, for cold pies use a Pate Sucree crust.

How to Bake All Butter Pie Crust

Almost as important as how you prepare pie pastry is how you bake it. All butter pie pastry should be thoroughly chilled before baking, and baked at a high temperature, ideally around 425ºF. However, not all pie fillings can be baked at that high of a temperature, which means that sometimes the pie crust will need to be partially or fully blind baked. On this website, each pie recipe indicates how the pie crust should be baked, so reference those directions for pies using this flaky pie crust.

But do know, if you try to bake a butter pie crust without chilling it after it has been rolled and place in a pie tin (either in the freezer for 20 minutes or the refrigerator for an hour) there is a chance the pie crust could melt off, shrink or just generally not bake well.

If you found this post helpful, check out these other pie crust recipes:

• Cream Cheese and Butter Pie Crust
• Chocolate Pie Pastry
• Pâte Sucrée (Sweet Pie Crust)

MAKE SURE TO TAG @EVERYDAYPIE ON INSTAGRAM OR COMMENT BELOW IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS RECIPE OR IF YOU USE THIS PIE DOUGH FOR YOUR OWN CREATION!

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Recipe by: Kelli Avila Photos by: Kristin Chalmers