How to Make Homemade All-Butter Pie Crust

This yummy All-Butter Pie Crust recipe uses a multi-fold lamination method similar to puff pastry to create a flaky, tender, golden brown crust perfect for any pie. The recipe provides ingredients for both a single and double pie crust, allowing flexibility for various pie types. By incorporating layers of butter through folding, this method ensures a light, crispy texture that holds up well to both sweet and savory fillings.

About This Pie Crust Recipe

This pie crust recipe is a little different than most recipes you'll find on the internet because I use a technique called lamination to get lots of flaky layers with the dough is baked.

Lamination is the technique of repeatedly rolling and folding the dough. For this dough recipe, the rolling and folding is done 3 times.

Each time you fold and roll, you create more layers of butter and dough. When the pie crust bakes, the butter melts and creates steam, puffing up the layers and making the crust light and flaky.

I use this pie dough recipe for these pie recipes:

• Blackberry Galette
• Raspberry Galette
• Marionberry Pie
• Apple Cranberry Pie

Growing up and well into adulthood, my mother made the most amazing pies. The filling was always just right, and the pie crust was incredibly flaky. I've always loved to bake, but I focused on cakes, cookies, and pastry. There was no need for me to learn how to make pies because my mother had that locked down.

Then came the day when my mom wasn't able to make pies anymore. It wasn't sudden, it was gradual as her arthritis made it hard for her to stand and to roll out dough. So I learned to make pie crust. The first few weren't great, but practice really does make better and eventually perfect. So if you're new to pie dough and pie crust I want to encourage you to dive right in and just keep practicing.

Only 5 Ingredients in This Pie Crust

This pie dough has five basic ingredients and each ingredient plays a specific role in creating a delicious butter pie crust.

A good pie dough starts with quality ingredients. I use Bob's Red Mill Unbleached All-Purpose Flour because of its quality and protein content. It's my go-to flour for most of my baking. For butter, I love Tillamook Butter.

• Unbleached All-Purpose Flour. Provides the structure for the pie crust.
• Cold Unsalted Butter. Butter provides the flavor and flakiness of the pie. Use unsalted butter, because different brands of salted butter contain different amounts of salt and it's better to control the salt by adding salt.
• Kosher Salt. The salt enhances the flavor of the pie crust.
• Granulated Sugar. Sugar adds a little sweetness and helps with the browning of the dough as it bakes.
• Ice Cold Water. Water holds everything together. Ice cold water helps ensure that the butter stays cold. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of water. The dough will be a little wet, but as the dough rests and chills in the refrigerator it will absorb the water. Depending on how you store your flour you may need to add an additional tablespoon of water if the dough is crumbly and feels dry after adding the water.

How to Make The Pie Dough

Step 1: Cut the cold butter into 1/2-inch cubes and place it back in the refrigerator.

Step 2: Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk them to combine.

How to Store the Pie Dough

Now that you have made this beautiful pie dough, it needs to be stored properly. Pie dough can go bad, and you don't want that to happen.

Refrigerator: Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and store it for at least 45 minutes and up to 2 days. If for some reason you didn't make that pie or hand pies as planned and it's been 2 days, freeze the pie dough.

Freezing Pie Dough: Place the pie dough in a freezer bag and freeze it for up to 2 months. When ready to use the dough, place it in the refrigerator the day before to thaw.

Rolling and Shaping the Pie Dough

Follow the instructions in the associated recipe for rolling out the pie dough. For most recipes you'll want round, as in this Peach Crumble Pie recipe. But for these Cherry Hand Pies you want a rectangle.

Pro Tips for Making This Recipe

• Use Cold Butter. Your butter and water should be cold when they're mixed into the dry ingredients. My mother sometimes chilled the flour. I haven't tried that technique yet, but it worked for her. I keep a jar that holds 2 cups of water in the refrigerator so I have ice-cold water whenever I need it.

• Don't overwork the dough. Working the dough too much will activate the gluten in the flour and create a dough that is harder to roll our and a finished pie crust that is chewy. Once the water is added only work it enough with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula to work it into the other ingredients and then shape it into a circle or square for your recipe.

• Keep the dough cool. After chilling the dough, let it sit on the counter for 5-10 minutes to make it easier to roll out. Quickly roll out the dough and fit it into whatever baking pan or pie plate that you are using. Then chill the dough again after shaping it.

Troubleshooting Pie Crust

• The pie dough is crumbly and the edges crack when rolled out. Not enough water was added to the dough.
• The dough tears as it's lifted into the pie plate. The dough is too warm. If it is fragile or soft return the dough to the refrigerator and let it chill for 15 minutes.
• The pie crust is tough and chewy. The dough was either overworked or not all the butter called for in the recipe was used.