The perfect extra flaky pie crust recipe to fill with your favorite fillings. This is great for sweet or savory pies.
A little confession. I might have a slight addiction to collecting cookbooks. When trying to decide on a recipe this can be a disadvantage.
So many to choose from. Several years ago, I was on a mission to find a pie crust that would be as good as the one that my grandma McCallum made.
I wish she were here to spend the day with me showing me how she made hers. Since that is not possible, and nobody has her recipes, I had to start out at square one.
I was never able to find one that tasted like hers. She was a firm believer in using lard. Hers was the kind of lard that you would have to go to a butcher to get, not the kind available at a regular grocery store.
Even though I made some pie crusts that tasted good, I was always just a bit disappointed so I gave up and started buying the refrigerated pie crusts at the grocery store. That ends today with this recipe. Yes, it’s that good.
For Carlee’s Mother’s Day dessert buffet, I decided to make an oatmeal pie recipe that my friend Lynn gave me. It calls for 2 pre made pie crusts, but I didn’t have them.
I decided to look up a recipe and make my own. I am not going to compare this to my grandmother’s pie crust because, as we all know, sometimes we can’t ever quite make certain things as good as mom and grandma made.
I got this recipe from “Back in the Day Bakery, Made With Love” cookbook. Paula Deen included them on several of her shows. If their baked goods are good enough for her then they should be good enough for me.
I have both of their cookbooks so I was given pie crust choices. After studying them, I chose this. She even explains why she uses apple cider vinegar. Her grandmother taught her how to make pie crust. PERFECT. That’s exactly how I wanted to learn.
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Note: I have never refrigerated my pie crust after putting it in the pie pan before. I have done some research and learned that this is what makes the pie crust so tender and flaky.
To make the best pie crust, this should not be eliminated. This is why it is also important to leave a few bigger chunks of butter in your crust when cutting it into the flour mixture.
-MiMi
MiMi’s Extra Flaky Pie Crust
Ingredients
- 1¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup ice water
- 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 8 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into 1 inch cubes
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt. Set aside.1¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour, 1½ teaspoons granulated sugar, ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- In a measuring cup or small bowl, combine water and apple cider vinegar. Set aside.½ cup ice water, 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- Toss the butter into the flour mixture to gently coat it. Then use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour. You should have various sized pieces of butter, ranging from sandy patches to pea sized hunks, with some larger bits as well. Add about half of the ice water mixture and stir lightly with a fork until the flour is evenly moistened and the dough begins to come together into a ball. If the dough seems dry, add a little more ice water, 1 to 2 T at at time.8 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into 1 inch cubes
- Flatten the dough into a disk and wrap it in plastic. I like to put mine in a ziploc bag and flatten it a bit more so that it is quick to roll out. Refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight. (This dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days or in the freezer for a month. If frozen, defrost in the refrigerator overnight before using)
- Lightly dust your rolling pin with flour. Put the dough on a lightly floured surface, or parchment paper dusted with flour and dust the top of the dough with a little flour as well. Roll out the dough until it is one and a half to two inches larger than your pie pan. About 1/8 inch thick.
- Place the dough in a buttered pie pan, tuck the edges under and crimp the edges.
- Cover the crust with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Flaky pie crust is always the best when they have been chilled before baking. (You can also refrigerate the dough at this point for 3 days or freeze for a month)
- Once the pie crust is fully chilled, prick the bottom of the crust all over with a fork.
- It is now ready to bake in the way suggested in your recipe.
Notes
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I will definitely be trying this. I would love to make a crust I could be proud of!
Pie crust is so tricky to make. There is an art to knowing how much water to put in the crust. Thanks for sharing at Idea Box.
Once you've done it a few times it is a little less intimidating. This one really turns out well!
Wow, this sounds like the perfect pie crust! I can't say I've ever made one myself, but my sister is a baker and has mentioned (on more than one occasion), the difficulty she's had finding a good pie crust recipe. I'm definitely pinning this for her! Thank you so much for sharing with us at the Talented Tuesday Link Party!
You'll have to let me know what she thinks if she tries it!
You'll have to let me know what she thinks if she tries it!
Looks perfect!
This is the best pie crust we have tried, and that is saying something!
I am always looking for a great pie crust! I have never heard of letting it rest in the fridge before. I will be doing that from now on, for sure. Thank you so much for sharing!
This one is definitely worth a try, I hope you love it!
I laughed when I read your confession about being addicted to cookbooks! I sometimes spend more time looking through recipes trying to decide what to make than I do actually cooking it! Thanks for the tip about resting the crust in the fridge!
You should see me when I am planning a menu for a party! I make a rough outline, search cookbooks, search pinterest, change my mind, search again, update the menu, search some more, revert to the original menu… Thanks for stopping by!
I'm so happy to see a pie crust made with butter and not crisco! Thank you so much 🙂
We use butter for pretty much everything. Subbing it for oleo and crisco in most of the old recipes I have tried works fine, though I have had a couple of flops! My mom did go through a phase of getting lard for her pie crusts, but they still weren't quite like her grandma's. So now we are butter all the way.
i have always been intimidated with making my own pie crust! this looks like something I can do 🙂 pinning & trying soon!!
It is one of those things that seems scarier than it is. You can do it!
You did do a beautiful job on crimping of your pie! In our family, it was my father's mother, who baked the apple pies from scratch, and being from the mid-west, I imagine she used lard too! I never did get the recipe from her. I've never tried
ACV in a pie crust before! Pinned to try later!
~Christine@CherishingaSweetLife
My mom does really good with this stuff. She has a hard time making one that lives up to her memories, but I think sometimes it is impossible to match something so filled with nostalgia. For a while my mom was actually getting lard from the butcher and doing it that way, but this one is much easier! The vinegar is supposed to help keep the gluten relaxed (I think!) Nobody likes uptight glutens in their pie crust!! 😉
I am a huge pie lover and I love to make my own pie crust. Confession time… I think I've become a bit of a pie snob (I'm not proud of that). Anyway, I'm so glad you stressed the importance of resting the pie dough in the fridge before rolling it out, and I'm happy you talked about the large chunks of butter you should have in the mixture. You did a beautiful job… you're pie crust looks perfect!
~Liz (Project Pastry Love)
It's ok to be a pie snob! There is definitely an art to getting the crust just right. Thank you so much for the compliments, it means a lot coming from a pie snob (and pastry aficionado) such as yourself!
I am MiMi and I am so happy that somebody who knows pastry crusts the way you do appreciates my crust! It means a lot. I'm anxious to look at your work and see what fun things you're baking up. I can't wait to see your pie crust.