Basic Butter Pie Dough
The dough comes together easily with just a little effort and can be made in advance so it’s waiting for you when you are ready. The resulting crust is all butter, flaky and easily adapted for flavorings and spices.
Category
Sweet
Appetizer
Servings/Yield
Yield one 9" round pie shell
Author
Helen Park
The dough comes together easily with just a little effort and can be made in advance so it’s waiting for you when you are ready. The resulting crust is all butter, flaky and easily adapted for flavorings and spices.
Ingredients
1 ¼ cup all purpose flour (150g)
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¼ tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp baking powder
8 Tbsp unsalted butter, very cold and cut into cubes
2-4 Tbsp ice water (30-60g)
Directions
Using a food processor, pulse the flour, sea salt, and baking powder together to combine.
Add the butter and keep pulsing until the flour resembles wet sand with small pea-size or smaller lumps of butter.
Pulse in one tablespoon of ice water at a time. After adding two spoonfuls of water, check by opening the lid and trying to clump the mix together in your hand. If it’s still too dry, add another tablespoon of water and pulse again. If it’s just barely holding together, move onto the next step.
To form the dough, lay a big square of plastic wrap down onto your work surface and deposit the crumbly mixture into the center.
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Gather the corner and sides of the plastic and push the dough into the center, flattening to form a disk. This brings the dough together without overworking the mix or risking any melting from too much warm hand contact.
As you bring the plastic in to the center to form the disk, make sure to press out excess air.
Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour, or up to two days, to give the dough time to rest and the flour (and any spices) time to hydrate.
While getting ready to roll out your crust, take your dough out and let it come up to a rollable temperature.
Recipe Note
Recipe Notes
If you are making the dough using stand mixer use the paddle attachment and mix the dry ingredients together. On the lowest setting, add in the butter and keep mixing until the butter becomes pea-sized or smaller. Keep mixing on low speed and add one tablespoon of water at a time and then continue with the steps listed above.
If making the dough by hand, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl and add the cold butter cubes. Rub the cubes with flour between your hands and tips of fingers until the size of the butter becomes about pea-sized. Continue adding the water a tablespoon at a time following the directions above.
If you a planning to make a closed pie, you will need to make this recipe twice.
Keep in mind that the better the butter quality the better the dough will taste so choose good flavorful butter when possible.
Variations and Ideas
This dough can be used for fruit or vegetable galettes, sweet and savories pies, as well as smaller hand pies.
If you would like to spice up the dough, add them into the first step with the flour.
To make a vegan version, vegan butter sticks (not the tub) can be substituted. Just test the recipe as different brands may have different results.
Usage Ideas
Questions? Contact helen@laboiteny.com
