Butter creates a pie crust that is flaky, buttery, and crispy, and it has the benefit of not containing any shortening or other oils. All of the best pies you’ve had have had all butter crusts, and you’ll be a better baker for knowing this super simple recipe. I love baking pies! They look much more complicated than they actually are to make, and a beautiful pie is always such an impressive dessert to serve at dinner or parties. Your guest will ooh and ahh over your butter crust pie even before they taste how good it is. Follow up this recipe with a delicious filling like my fresh cherry pie and a beautiful presentation of a lattice top crust and you’ll have a perfect, delicious, and impressive pie.
Why You’ll Love this Recipe
Ingredients in All Butter Pie Crust
Flour. Regular all-purpose flour is the perfect thing for this simple recipe. Sift your flour to work out any clumps and aerate it a bit before mixing. Unsalted Butter. Start with cold pieces of butter, cut into ½ inch cubes. It’s important to keep your butter cold throughout the dough making process, and we’ll talk more about that in a minute. Unsalted butter is preferred whenever you’re baking, so that you can control the amount of salt in the finished product. Salt. We do need to season our pie crust, and salt is the only seasoning needed. Use a regular table salt rather than a coarse grind, so that the salt crystals can evenly mix into the dough. Ice Cold Water. The colder you can get your water, the better. The secret to a gorgeous flaky pie crust is keeping the butter cold, and ice water will help with that. I like to just keep the water with ice in it until I’m ready to mix and then use my hand to keep the ice out of the water when I pour it.
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
How to Make an All Butter Pie Crust
Tips For Working with a Butter Pie Crust Recipe
You Must Keep It Cold. I might be repeating myself, but it’s very important that the butter stays cold before, during, and after mixing up this dough. The reason for this is that the small bits of butter get wrapped up in flour as we mix up the dough with the pastry cutter. Those small bits of butter expand during cooking and create pockets that give us the flaky texture we’re after. If you allow the butter to melt even a little during mixing, you let the butter lose its power. All butter pie dough should be cold up until the minute you put the pie in the oven. Use your refrigerator any time you need to keep it that way. Use the Right Ingredients. There are only four ingredients, so make sure you’re using the best ones and the right types. It’s important that you use unsalted butter, and the fresher that is, the better. It’s also important that you use fine grain salt so that you don’t have salty bites in your crust. For Blind Baking, Use Pie Weights. If you are making a single crust pie that requires you to bake the crust before adding the filling, make sure that you weigh down the crust before baking. The butter will expand and create large air bubbles that will make the crust mostly useless if you don’t. Purchase weights made for pie making, or simply line the crust with parchment paper or foil and use some dried beans to weigh it down.
Use a Pie Shield. Sometimes when baking a pie, the edges of the crust will be finished cooking before the rest of the pie is. This isn’t a problem if you’re prepared for it! Pie shields can be purchased, or made using strips of foil, to cover the crust during the last minutes of baking to avoid burning.
Recommended Pie Crust Tools
Rolling Pin – We’ll use this to roll out the dough perfectly even. Pastry Cutter – This is the tool you need to mix the butter and flour together. Pie Pan – To make your pie. This recipe works best for a 9 inch pie plate.
More Delicious Pie Recipes
Cherry Pie Blueberry Pie Peach Pie Pecan Pie Oatmeal Pie Pumpkin Pie Sweet Potato Pie Apple Pie Fresh Strawberry Pie Vegan Apple Pie
Yay! Now you have my personal best and favorite all-butter pie crust and you can go out and make perfect, flaky pies for any occasion. Be sure to pin this recipe so more people can enjoy it too. © Little Sunny Kitchen
