Basic Pie Crust: Tips & Secrets for Making a Perfect Crust

Once you have a great basic pie crust recipe, instead of a nightmare, pie becomes something one dreams about. Well, wait no longer. I got you. It’s easy and once you read through the tips, you’ll have a lovely, flaky crust every time.

Here are some pies you can make using this crust recipe. 

Tips and Secrets

1. Chill – The butter needs to be cold. The dough needs to rest in the fridge before using it. It’s also a good idea to keep it refrigerated after rolling it out until you’re ready to bake it.
2. Don’t smother with attention – Pie crust is an introvert in the world of pastry, so take it easy and handle it with care. Too much touching will overwork the gluten in the flour and make it rubbery.
3. Don’t drown it – Use as little water as possible. Again, too much will make the dough rubbery.
4. Nobody wants a soggy bottom – Be sure to par-bake your bottom crust or, well, your bottom will be soggy… and rubbery.
5.  Weight matters – use pie weights (or dry beans) to weigh down the bottom crust for the par-bake. This (and refrigerating and using less water) helps keep the crust from shrinking while baking.
6. This recipe gives you extra dough to work with in case you’d like to make a lattice top or a thick edge.

Basic Pie Crust

This is a large recipe that makes a thick crust or creating a lattice-topped pie easier to accomplish; but,  If you prefer a thin crust and none of the fancy stuff,  you can freeze the extras.

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup high-quality unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons sugar for savory crust or 1/4 cup for dessert pie
• 3/4 cup very cold water 

Place the flour,  salt, and butter in a food processor. Pulse until the butter is about the size of small cough drops. If you process it too long, it won’t make a flakey crust.

Continue to pulse and slowly add the water until the mixture begins to come together. At this point, the butter should be about the size of peas. It’s ready when it looks like a streusel topping. You can tell it’s ready when you grab a small handful and it easily sticks together to form a ball.

Yeast dough loves to be played with but pie crust does not. A cold crust is a flaky crust. Keep things cool by not touching the crust too much and keeping the pie crust dough chilled at all times before baking.

Without touching the dough too much, gently pour half of the dough onto the middle of a sheet of plastic wrap, parchment paper, or wax paper. Do this again with the other half. Using the wrapping, cup around each until it forms a ball.  Then fold the wrapping loosely over the dough and flatten each into about 1-inch high disks. Gently secure the wrap around the disks and refrigerate for 60 minutes – until the disks have chilled.

To make the bottom crust, roll a disk out into a large circle – a little bigger than your pie plate. Pie plates are often 9 – 9 1/2 inches in size, so 10 1/2 – 11 inches is about right. All the way through this process, you should be able to still see the small butter pieces in your crust.

The easiest way I’ve found to transport the pie crust into the pie plate is to fold it in quarters. Another great option is to roll it onto your rolling pin and then gently unroll it into the pie plate.

And then place it into the pie plate and carefully unfold it. It’s okay if the edges go about an inch over the edge because pie crust often shrinks while it bakes. Trim any extra edges over an inch off though.

The Parbake

Preheat the oven to 375°F. While the oven preheats, place the bottom crust in the refrigerator so the crust stays chilled.

Parbaking is short for partial baking and also known as blind-baking. We parbake the bottom pie crust to prevent a soggy-bottomed pie. To do this, poke the bottom crust with a fork all around  (about 29 times) and then lightly place a piece of parchment paper on top of the bottom crust. Place about a pound of pie weights or dry beans on the parchment paper. Spread them out. The beans cannot be used for eating after this as they will no longer cook properly; but, they can be saved for another day of pie-making and become known as “The Pie Beans” from this day forward.

Bake the bottom pie crust in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until crust edges are light golden brown. Remove the foil and beans and bake for another 5 minutes.

If your oven hasn’t been preheated, the butter in your crust will melt, the crust will be limp and not flakey, and your hard work will be ruined. No pressure.

After parbaking is done, remove the pie crust from the oven & allow it to cool. This is important so when you place the top crust on your pie the butter in your top crust won’t melt – making your top crust hard to deal with or lose its flakiness.

If parcooking your filling, let it cool to room temperature and then pour it into the parbaked bottom crust.

You can create your lattice work on a clean flour sack towel, parchment paper, or wax paper; but, it’s ususllay easier to do it on the filled pie after it has cooled.

The Topper

Place the second pie crust over the pie. If you like, you can use cookie-cutters or pie cutters to cut out a small circle or cute shape in the center and then place it over the pie.

I created this recipe to be sure you had enough crust to have fun creating your topper. I’ve run out of crust too many times so I’ve fixed that just for you.

If you want to get fancy, you can do latticework.  An adjustable dough cutter is perfect for the task. It cuts multiple strips of pie crust at once so all the strips are the same size. By the way, this tool is great for cutting homemade pasta too.

If leaving your top crust whole, be sure to cut slits in it so excess steam can escape while your pie bakes.

The Edge

For the edge, just fold the excess under around the pie and then crimp using your fingers all the way around. Your edges will look prettier with practice. Until things improve, we’ll call it “rustic”. No worries.

Baking time will vary with each recipe but a suggestion if you parcook your filling first (which I highly recommend with most fruit pies), is to preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush top pie crust with beaten egg. If fitting, you can then sprinkle the top crust with large sugar crystals. Place your pie in the preheated oven and bake for about 60 minutes or until the top crust is golden brown and the filling is hot and bubbly. If the edges look done partway through the baking, cover them with a pie guard or foil so they don’t over bake. Allow the pie to rest for a couple of hours so the filling can set (thicken). It’s even better if you make your pie a day ahead so it can cool completely.