ChefSteps

Every pie dough recipe shares the same deceptively simple list of ingredients: flour, fat, salt, and water. But there are a bunch of different kinds of flour you can use, and the same is true of sources of fat and of water. And, depending on the ingredients you’re using, there are different methods that work best for combining them.

Our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-guide-to-pie-dough-the-ingredients">in-depth guide to the ingredients of pie dough</a> walks you through each of the ingredients and how they can affect the final, baked pie crust. For now, let’s go over the basics.

Wheat flour: All kinds of wheat flour products exist, and the way they behave in doughs is largely a function of the kinds of wheat they contain and the way they have been milled. For pie dough, the most important property of flour is its protein content; a higher protein content generally means there’s more gluten potential. Even when coated with fat, high-protein flour will produce a dough with good structure and durability, which will bake up tender and flaky.

Fat: While you can use any kind of fat to make pastry, some fats are better than others. Shortening, lard, and butter are most commonly used to make pie dough because of their intrinsic properties: They’re solid at room temperature or colder, which means they won’t readily melt when mixed with flour to make a dough, and they’ll stay solid as you manipulate the dough. This is important because liquid fat incorporated into flour will coat the flour particles, which interferes with the ability of the water portion of the dough to hydrate those flour particles. Insufficiently hydrated flour will produce a crumbly, hard-to-work-with dough. 

Water: The primary purpose of the liquid portion of a pie dough is to hydrate the wheat flour, which encourages gluten development, creating a supple, resilient dough that can be easily manipulated. It does not have to be water: Dairy, like milk or buttermilk, and alcohol can also be used, and different kinds of liquid will affect dough-handling, flavor, and texture.

Salt: Salt is included in pie dough primarily for seasoning: you want the pie dough to taste delicious, which means you want the pie dough properly seasoned. However, salt also affects a dough’s rheological properties (basically, how it handles) and its cooked appearance. 

Depending on the kinds of ingredients you use and the amounts of each ingredient, there are better and worse ways to combine them. For example, if you aggressively cut the fat into the flour before adding in the liquid, there’s less flour available to absorb water. Another example: If you use a high-protein bread flour, you want to be careful about over-working the dough, which will produce a tough, not tender, crust.

There’s one rule that holds true for all pie doughs, however: For the best results, you want to keep your ingredients cold. Cold fat won’t melt and throw off the amount of liquid required to form the dough; cold water also acts as a buffer against gluten development, making it less likely that you’ll over-work the dough and produce a tough crust.

Before we begin: pie science

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pieCrustChart

The infographic

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/039305781X?lv=shuf&linkCode=ll1&linkId=3694ad3d1d51ebe38cd48794f2ecff9b&crid=1X53DARV6MSIC&language=en_US&tag=chefsteps02-20&channelId=1&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&plpRedirect=mhFallback">This hand-mixed pie dough</a> uses lard and butter for fat, and the combination creates a savory and delicious crust, with some extra caramelization from the inclusion of buttermilk, which is used instead of water. While the recipe is careful to emphasize the necessity of chilling the ingredients and the dough at specific stages, it’s still a little soft when you’re rolling it out. And even though it’s super tasty, it’s a little firm and dense, and the apple hand pies came out a little on the tough side.

The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, Matt and Ted Lee

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470928654?lv=shuf&linkCode=ll1&linkId=58ad6951a40f0a3133eb0afd775a10a0&language=en_US&tag=chefsteps02-20&channelId=1&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&plpRedirect=mhFallback">This 3-2-1 pie dough</a> (3 parts flour to 2 parts butter to 1 part water) comes together in a stand mixer and it’s a dream to handle when raw; it’s very resilient and you only need to add a little flour when rolling it out. It’s flaky and isn’t too tender, thanks to the relatively large proportion of butter when compared with the other recipes, but Matthew thought it could use a little more salt for seasoning. The hand pies were just all right; the lack of seasoning resulted in a doughier taste than he would’ve preferred.

Culinary Institute of America

<a href="https://www.seriouseats.com/old-fashioned-flaky-pie-dough-recipe">Stella Parks’s pie dough recipe</a> on Serious Eats is simple to mix by hand and produces a resilient dough that’s easy to handle. A quick folding process yields a laminated dough that doesn’t require any chilling before rolling out and forming the shell. It’s the one recipe that calls for a specific brand of flour—Gold Medal Blue Label all-purpose flour. The dough made some good apple hand pies and a nice blind-baked crust.

Stella Parks (Serious Eats)

Our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttery-flaky-all-purpose-pie-crust-pate-brisee">pâte brisée</a> is tender, crumbly, flaky, and buttery, and comes together quickly in a stand mixer. It’s a dream to roll out and work with, and produced a tasty apple pie. It’s a little tricky to nail down exactly when to add the relatively small amount of ice water.

ChefSteps pâte brisée

<a href="https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-double-pie-crust-recipe">King Arthur’s hand-mixed pie dough</a> is well-seasoned, very tasty, and very flaky, thanks to a combination of butter and shortening. It’s a little difficult to roll out and handle; Matthew might add more water and put a fold in if he made it again.

King Arthur Baking

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1581573278?lv=shuf&linkCode=ll1&linkId=d46447bad81f25c505c54ad3a40d4437&language=en_US&tag=chefsteps02-20&channelId=1&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&plpRedirect=mhFallback">This is a perfect pie dough.</a> Mixed together by hand, it’s resilient, a dream to roll out and shape, and it baked up into a crust with a very flaky texture and great flavor, thanks to the leaf lard incorporated into the dough.

Art of the Pie, Kate McDermott

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679450815?lv=shuf&linkCode=ll1&linkId=a5415196016f92d65ca9debb489900d7&language=en_US&tag=chefsteps02-20&channelId=1&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&plpRedirect=mhFallback">This hot-water, hand-mixed dough</a> is more like a pâte sucrée than a pâte brisée. It’s very stable, but it takes a gentle touch while rolling out and shaping. The cooked texture is firm, tough, and not flaky at all, and it doesn’t have the best flavor.

The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684813483?lv=shuf&linkCode=ll1&linkId=63bb32c0d0f392d1a687873156716673&language=en_US&tag=chefsteps02-20&channelId=1&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&plpRedirect=mhFallback">This is an almost perfect pie dough.</a> It’s a two-stage butter crust—1/3 of the butter is cubed and frozen and the remainder is cubed and chilled—that comes together in a food processor. It’s quite firm and great to roll out, and it bakes up into a very tender crust. However, it doesn’t really have a flaky texture, it’s a little oily, and it isn’t that flavorful. It still baked up wonderfully, and the apple pies were great.

The Pie and Pastry Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum

<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119744997?lv=shuf&linkCode=ll1&linkId=fcd9d89fa98c741d14aa8aa6b2cab6c2&language=en_US&tag=chefsteps02-20&channelId=1&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&plpRedirect=mhFallback">This hand-mixed pie dough</a> uses shortening for its fat component, and as a result it had the weakest flavor of them all. It was stressful to work with—too soft and difficult to roll out, and very crumbly. Once baked, it had a tender, flaky, and crumbly texture, but the flavor wasn’t great in the apple pies.

Professional Baking, Wayne Gisslen

<a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-pie-dough-crust">This is a pie dough</a> made by hand, and it requires methodically cutting cold butter into the flour, and folding the dough over itself multiple times on the bench. It&#39;s a process that requires a little patience and practice, but the results are exceptional. The raw dough is resilient, easy to roll out and otherwise manipulate, and it baked up into a super flaky and crispy pie crust.

ChefSteps pie dough

Matthew’s main takeaway is that all of these pie doughs work well. You could pick any one of them and make a decent pie.

In the end, since there are so many paths to making a workable and delicious pie dough, “the best pie dough” comes down to your personal preferences. Matthew likes mixing pie doughs by hand, so he’s partial to recipes that use hand-mixing, like our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-guide-to-pie-dough-the-final-recipe">hand-mixed pie dough recipe</a>. But maybe you don’t like the feeling of finely ground wheat flour sifting through your fingers; a recipe that uses a food processor or stand mixer might be better for you.

The utility of this exercise ultimately lies in laying out the ways in which even a simple thing like pie dough can be made in a bunch of different ways. Even if you’ve got your go-to pie recipe, or you really like our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttery-flaky-all-purpose-pie-crust-pate-brisee">pâte brisée</a>, maybe one of these recipes will speak to you on some level that your current recipe doesn’t, or maybe you’ll want to give something different a shot this year: try different ratios of ingredients, new processes, or explore different textural possibilities.

Since everyone loves the thrill of competition, here are Matthew’s winners and runners up, even if every recipe tested will get you a pretty good pie crust.

Winners: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttery-flaky-all-purpose-pie-crust-pate-brisee">ChefSteps pâte brisée</a> <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-pie-dough-crust">ChefSteps pie dough</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Baking-Pastry-Mastering-Art-Craft/dp/0470928654?&linkCode=ll1&tag=chefsteps02-20&linkId=58ad6951a40f0a3133eb0afd775a10a0&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">Culinary Institute of America</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-Pie-Practical-Homemade-Fillings/dp/1581573278?&linkCode=ll1&tag=chefsteps02-20&linkId=d46447bad81f25c505c54ad3a40d4437&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">Art of the Pie</a>.

Runners Up: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pastry-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0684813483?&linkCode=ll1&tag=chefsteps02-20&linkId=63bb32c0d0f392d1a687873156716673&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">The Pie and Pastry Bible</a>, <a href="https://www.seriouseats.com/old-fashioned-flaky-pie-dough-recipe">Stella Parks</a>.

So ... which pie crust is the best?!?

If you love pie—and you do, you love pie—you love pie crust. After all, what’s a pie without the flaky, tender, crumbly, rich pastry that serves as an edible vessel for sweet and savory fillings of all kinds?But there are just so many pie dough recipes out there, even though all of them have basically the same list of ingredients. Some tell you to get out a food processor or stand mixer, others insist all you need is your hands; some call for just butter, others tell you to seek out rendered leaf lard, and still others ask you to use a combination of different fats. Which one do you choose?Of course, all of this means that pie dough is a perfect candidate for a parametric analysis! We’ve done <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies-when-average-equals-amazing">chocolate chip cookies</a> and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-best-brownies-parametric-recipe">brownies</a>; it’s time for pie!As with our previous parametric analyses, we chose a bunch of recipes from reputable sources and created a chart that compares their ingredient quantities and preparation methods. We converted the ingredients to baker’s percentages, noting any discrepancies in methods and any outlier ingredients, like vodka and buttermilk.To make the pie recipes, we enlisted our master pastry chef Matthew Woolen to make each recipe exactly as written and offer his reflections on the processes. Matthew made each recipe into a blind-baked crust, then made little apple hand pies, too, and we all tasted each of them.Editors’ Note: This analysis has been updated to include the <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/perfect-pie-dough-crust">ChefSteps Perfect Pie Dough recipe</a>.

The Best Pie Doughs: A Parametric Analysis