Making a pie crust from scratch can seem scary, but it doesn’t have to be. In this post, I’m going to be listing some simple tips for you to keep in mind, for the next time you tackle an inspiring pie recipe you find.
What’s a double crust?
Double-crust pies are pies that have an upper and lower crust. These two crusts seal in a filling (either pre-cooked or raw), and meet around an edge. In general, the crusts are assembled raw and then baked with filling, but in some recipes, the lower crust is pre-baked first.
Apple pies and Tourtières are examples of double-crust pies.
After years of making both sweet and savory pies, here are some tips for getting delicious, flakey crusts consistently:
- Incorporate the fats into the flour before adding your liquids. Remember: moist, chewy bread comes from the development gluten in a dough through contact between flour and water. If we want crusts to be light and crisp, we want the flour to have minimal direct contact with water. So we incorporate the fats (often butter, lard or shortening) into the flour first before adding in the water.
- It’s better to have a wetter dough. Based on the previous point, it reads like I’m saying water is the enemy, so therefore use very little of it. Water is not the enemy, so don’t skimp. Water is critical to your crust because it helps you form a dough you can roll without it crumbling apart. A drier dough forces you to overknead, which can cause tough crusts. Water is integral to great crusts: during baking, the water in the dough evaporates, which creates these tiny pockets of steam within the layers of fat and flour that causes pie crusts to have that addictive flakey texture.
- Rest the dough. The same logic for resting pasta dough applies here: resting the dough for at least an hour after you’ve kneaded it allows the moisture to distribute in the dough, so you end up with fewer wet spots and dry spots.
- When rolling out the dough, expect to use a lot of flour. The flour keeps the dough from sticking to your rolling surface, and makes transferring into your pie plate easy. Sprinkle 2 tbsp. of flour onto your surface, place a dough disk onto the surface and sprinkle flour over top. Using a rolling pin, gently roll away and towards yourself. Rotate the dough and roll again. Continue to rotate the dough and roll, dusting flour on top of and underneath the dough until appropriate thickness and size are reached.
- If you do accidentally cause a tear or a hole in your crust, don’t fret. Moisten some leftover dough with some water and press over the affected area. Dust with flour.
- Fillings should be cool. Whether you’re filling your pie with sliced apples or a beef stew, the fillings should be cool enough not to cause your pie crust to sweat and melt while you’re filling your crust.
- Make the pie a day before. Double-crust pies are designed to be the perfect make-ahead food. They re-heat beautifully, and the filling stays moist because it’s sealed in a fatty crust. Sometimes, pies fail not because of skill, but because the person making it is rushed and scratch-made pies can be involved. Pie dough and pie filling can be pre-made in stages, and the final pie can be baked 1-2 days ahead.
My favourite tools
A few years ago, my friend pointed out a little 5.5” rolling pin at a souvenir shop in Niagara-on-the-Lake: you know, one of those shops that sell locally produced jams, giant cutlery for your walls and herb mixes for your baked Brie. We thought the rolling pin would be a cute décor piece to remind me to pursue my passions… but this impulse purchase has become my most used rolling pin. Here’s why: I rarely have the luxury of rolling dough out on a large, unenclosed surface. I’m usually working on a small section of a countertop with a toaster oven on one side, stove on the other, and a backsplash on the far side. Large rolling pins are ungainly in this situation and difficult to store. Also, the little rolling pin is perfect for making small circles needed for pierogies and dal puri.
If you enjoy making crusts, another solid tool is a pastry cutter, which uses multiple semi-sharp blades that help cut butter/shortening/lard into flour, speeding up the process while keeping you from melting the fat in your fingers. I keep a knife nearby to help clear out the spaces between the blades as I work.
