Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

Digital scale

Bench scraper

Rolling pin

Dough docker

9-inch Pie pan

Bread flour

Granulated sugar

Kosher salt

Unsalted butter

Ice water

Two 9-inch pies, or one 9-inch double-crust pie

Bread flour: We recommend using bread flour for pie dough because it produces a crust with more pronounced flakiness that also retains its shape well. You can substitute the bread flour with cake or all-purpose flour. For a comparison of how pie doughs made with different flours perform, see the tip below.

Sugar: You may omit the sugar in this recipe if making a savory pie or <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-quiche">quiche</a>. 

Unsalted butter: This recipe works equally well with American-style or European-style butter. What’s most important is using chilled butter when making pie dough to ensure it doesn’t get creamed into the dough, and remains in distinct pieces, which will result in puffier, flakier crust when baked. For more on the differences between American and European-style butter, check out the tip below Step 2.

Dive deeper into the world of pie dough with our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/parametric-pie-dough">parametric analysis</a>, and guides to <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-guide-to-pie-dough-the-ingredients">ingredients</a> and the <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/a-guide-to-pie-dough-the-process">dough-making process</a>.
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Pie dough requires patience, cold, the right attitude, and the best ingredients for the job. Flour, fat, salt, and water. If a recipe requires these few ingredients, they have to be the right ones. We figured them out for you.

A Guide to Pie Dough: The Ingredients

A parametric analysis of the best pie dough recipes

The Best Pie Doughs: A Parametric Analysis

A Guide to Pie Dough: The Process

Before we begin

From a materials science perspective, we can think of pie dough as a composite material comprised of two things: a structure and a matrix.

Structure: A rigid form or skeleton. In this case, we can think of the structure as the gluten network (water and flour), which gives pie dough its strength and form

Matrix: The continuous phase, or the part that is embedded in the structure, which controls how the structure behaves (does it flow or become malleable, or is it rigid?). For pie dough, the matrix is fat (butter).

In baking, the matrix (fat) does several things to the structure:
• It physically interferes with gluten and coats flour particles.
• When it is heated and melts, it causes the dough to expand.
• It contributes to layering and tenderness.

The materials science of pie dough.

One of the clearest variables in this recipe is the type of flour you use for the dough. You can make serviceable pie dough with a variety of flours or flour blends, but they will have distinct differences in texture and handling properties. Here are three common flours and how they perform in pie dough:

All-purpose flour: Balanced tenderness and flakiness; moderately easy to roll out and retains its shape reasonably well.
 
Unbleached cake flour: Most tender, most delicate texture; lower potential for distinct flakiness; very easy to roll out but deforms easily and can slump or shrink quite a bit once baked.

Bread flour (our favorite): Highest potential for flakiness, lowest on the tenderness scale; slightly harder to roll out but retains shape through crimping or baking; does not shrink as much as pie doughs made with cake or all-purpose flour.
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Convert all-purpose flour into bread flour using Vital Wheat Gluten Flour.

How to Make Any Flour Into “Bread Flour”

How different flours affect pie dough handling and performance.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, and salt until well combined, about 30 seconds. Set aside.

Whisk dry ingredients

Using a bench scraper, cut butter into 1/8-inch- to 1/4-inch-thick slices. Add butter slices to bowl with flour mixture and toss gently to coat butter with flour.

Return floured butter slices to counter, leaving excess flour in bowl. Arrange butter into stacks of 4 slices. Using bench scraper, cut butter into 1/8-inch- to 1/4-inch-thick matchsticks.

Turn matchsticks 90 degrees and dice butter into 1/8-inch to 1/4-inch cubes.

Sprinkle diced butter lightly with flour mixture to prevent pieces from sticking together, and roughly chop butter to produce even smaller, irregular pieces.

Transfer diced butter back to bowl with flour mixture. Rub butter between thumbs and fingertips until mixture resembles coarse, lumpy oatmeal, about 1 minute. 

For best results, cover bowl, transfer to freezer, and chill flour-butter mixture for 30 minutes. You can skip this freezing step and proceed immediately to Step 3.

Cut in butter

This recipe works equally well with European or American-style butters, but they will yield pie doughs with slightly different qualities.

American butter
• Less fat content (minimum 80% butterfat), more water content.
• More water means more gluten forming potential, so it may produce a slightly tougher crust. 
• More water means dough has greater tendency to shatter when rolling out.

European-style butter
• More fat content (minimum 82% butterfat), less water content. 
• Results in slightly flakier pie crust with more pronounced butter flavor. 
• The crust will be slightly more tender. 
• More fat makes the dough more pliable and easier to roll out.

American vs. European-style butter

After you&#39;ve diced the butter and tossed it with the flour mixture, you could call it a day and just start mixing the dough. The baked dough would have an aggressively flaky cross section, with large airy pockets. Sounds great, right? But the downside is that that flakiness would be irregular, since the butter pieces are larger, with lots of variance in size, and they&#39;d be distributed unevenly. There would also be more potential for pooling—those larger butter chunks might melt out of the dough during baking.

To increase the uniformity and mitigate the risk of pooling, it’s helpful to rub the butter and flour between your fingertips. This action emulates the French technique of fraisage—the practice of smearing or rubbing flour and butter together, which creates a more homogenous dough with smaller, more integrated chunks of butter. 

In practical terms, fraisage also plasticizes the flour—butter coats the flour, interfering with gluten development and to produce a more malleable, rollable, and tender dough.

Rub butter and flour together for more uniform flakiness and less pooling.

If you love ultra-flaky pie crust (and don’t mind sacrificing some tenderness), we recommend freezing the butter-flour mixture before adding the ice water and mixing the dough in Step 3. Why? Keeping the butter colder means keeping more butter pieces intact, even after all the friction created in the mixing and folding process. 

The more visible pieces of butter present in the flour mixture, the greater the potential for producing flaky layers in the dough. The downside is that the butter isn’t as integrated into the flour (coating the flour in fat), which encourages gluten development and produces a less tender crust. Think: shattery-flaky, less tender-flaky.

Freeze the butter-flour mixture for ultra-flaky dough.

Make a well in center of flour-butter mixture. Add water and, using a spatula, mix until a crumbly, streusel-like dough forms with very little dry flour remaining, about 1 minute. Using your hands, gently gather and squeeze dough until it clumps together, about 1 minute.

Mix dough

Turn dough out onto work surface. Using your hands and a bench scraper, press dough into a roughly 6- by 12-inch rectangle. 

Using bench scraper, lift one short side of rectangle and fold one-third over center of dough. Gently press down. Repeat with second end, folding one-third over center like a folded letter that is going to be stuffed into an envelope. Gently pull and press dough to ensure edges line up neatly to form a clean rectangular block. 

Rotate dough block 90 degrees and repeat pressing and folding process one more time, for a total of 2 sets of letter folds. Using your hands, press block into a 4- by 8-inch rectangle.

Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 48 hours.

Fold and chill dough

Depending on how vigorously you stirred the dough during the initial mixing in Step 3, it may be a bit coarse or crumbly after two sets of folds. In this case, we recommend performing one extra set of folds (for a total of 3 folds). This extra folding usually resolves any residual crumbliness or dry spots, and forms a cohesive dough.

Dough not coming together? Give it one more set of folds.

Using a bench scraper, divide dough into portions. 

For two 9-inch pies or one double-crust pie: Divide dough into 2 equal portions, each weighing about 440 g.

For three 9-inch tarts: Divide dough into 3 equal portions, each weighing between 290 g and 300 g.

If using right away, leave one portion of dough out. Wrap and refrigerate remaining portions until ready to roll out. If making pie dough in advance, wrap portions tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Portion dough

Liberally dust work surface and rolling pin with flour. Dust top of dough portion with flour.

Using rolling pin, gently beat and press dough until it begins to become malleable, about 30 seconds. Flip dough over and repeat beating and pressing process until it is pliable enough to roll without cracking, about 30 seconds longer.

Press dough and shape into a round disk. Roll dough along surface of counter to reinforce disk shape. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough, working from center out, into an oval shape. Rotate dough 90 degrees, and repeat rolling to form a circular shape. (If any portions of dough are too square looking, use the tip of the rolling pin to even out the shape.) Continue rotating and rolling, moving dough around on work surface and lightly dusting with more bench flour as needed, until dough circle measures 13 inches in diameter and is approximately 1/8-inch thick.

Follow the detailed instructions in the video above for rolling out dough.

Repeat with remaining dough portion, if using.

Roll out dough

Rolling a square of dough is arguably more straightforward than rolling a perfect circle for round pies. Here’s how to do it:

Using rolling pin, gently beat and press dough until it begins to become malleable, about 30 seconds. Flip dough over and repeat beating and pressing process until it is pliable enough to roll without cracking, about 30 seconds longer.

Position dough with one edge parallel to counter edge. Starting from the center, roll dough to the top and bottom edges of dough. Rotate dough 90 degrees, then repeat rolling. Continue rotating and rolling, moving dough around on work surface and lightly dusting with more bench flour as needed, until dough measures 12 inches on all sides and approximately 1/8-inch thick.

Not baking a round pie? Here’s how to roll out a square of dough.

It’s common to dock dough before baking. Why? Simply, it controls the rate of expansion of the dough, so you get a more even rise. While an undocked dough might have the capacity for larger air pockets, those pockets will be more irregular. So if you want a flatter, more evenly baked surface, dock your dough!

Dock the dough to control expansion.

Drape pie dough over rolling pin and transfer to a 9-inch pie pan, leaving about 2 inches of overhang on all sides. Gently ease and press dough into pan so that it is flush with bottom and sides, being careful not to stretch the dough. Using scissors, trim excess overhanging dough so that there is an even 1 1/2- to 2-inch overhang on all sides. Tuck overhanging dough under itself to form a rounded edge, then crimp edges all the way around pie shell. Using a fork, dock bottom surface of dough (avoiding side walls) if desired. 

Follow the detailed instructions in the video above for forming pie shell.

Repeat with remaining dough portion, if using.

Transfer pie shell(s) to refrigerator or freezer and chill for at least 4 hours and up to 3 days. If refrigerating or freezing for longer than 4 hours, wrap with plastic.

Form and chill pie shell

Many pie dough recipes call for lard or shortening in addition to or in place of butter. Why? First, lard or shortening stay pliable at a much wider temperature ranges, so the resulting pie doughs roll out much easier than all-butter doughs. Second, because these fats contain no water, they give a more tender, delicate, shorter texture to the crust.

Butter:
• Pliable and rollable from [f 54] to [f 68]; harder to roll out. 
• Flakier crust with more butter flavor.

Lard or shortening: 
• Pliable and rollable [f 59] to [f 104]; easier to roll out.
• More tender/short crust texture.

Butter vs. lard vs. shortening: What’s the difference?

Once pie shell is chilled, adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to [f 425] with low fan if using a convection oven, or [f 450] if using a conventional oven.

Line chilled pie shell with 2 sheets of aluminum foil, making sure to press foil into corners. Add dried beans or other pie weights to fill pie shell, spreading weights evenly and pressing lightly around edges to ensure corners are weighed down. Transfer pie pan to a 1/4 sheet pan.

Bake until crust begins to lightly brown around edges, 15 to 20 minutes.

Transfer sheet pan to heatproof surface and carefully remove foil and pie weights; set aside.

Blind bake crust with weights (optional)

You have many options for pie weights. We often use a mix of seeds and grains, but you can use anything food-safe such as dedicated pie weights or even table sugar.

Grains, seeds, dry beans: Cheap, reusable, and fill the corners of a pie well.
Granulated sugar: Fills corners and spaces of pie perfectly; toasted sugar is usable in desserts; has limited number of uses before it gets too dark. 
Dedicated metal or ceramic pie weights: Infinitely reusable, uniform shape; sometimes don’t fill corners as well.

Pie weight options

Lower oven temperature to [f 325] with low fan if using a convection oven, or [f 350] if using a conventional oven.

Wrap a piece of foil around edges of pie crust to form a heat shield. Return sheet pan to oven and bake until pie crust is golden brown all over, 20 to 25 minutes longer.

Transfer sheet pan to a heatproof surface and let pie crust cool until ready to fill. Blind baked pie crust can be filled right away, or stored at room temperature, uncovered or loosely covered with foil, for up to 3 days.
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Perfect Pumpkin Pie

Remove weights and finish blind bake (optional)

Pie dough can be made through Step 5, wrapped tightly in plastic, and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months. If freezing, store wrapped portions of dough in a 1-gallon freezer ziplock-style bag. Defrost wrapped portions of dough on a 1/4 sheet pan in the refrigerator overnight, or at room temperature until butter can be pressed with fingers, about 3 hours.

Pie dough shells can be made through Step 7, wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months. Frozen shells can be baked directly from frozen, though the baking time and temperature will change: Blind bake at [f 375] with low fan if using a convection oven, or [f 400] if using a conventional oven, for 40 minutes. Remove pie weights and continue baking until bottom crust is opaque, about 20 minutes longer. 

Blind baked pie crusts can be prepared through Step 9, and stored at room temperature, uncovered or loosely covered with foil, for up to 3 days.

Make-ahead and storage

Great pies start with great pie dough, and this is it: the only pie dough you’ll ever need.It’s easy to put together—you don’t need a stand mixer or a food processor or any special tools, other than a bench scraper and a rolling pin. It’s super versatile—you can use it to make both sweet and savory pies, you can use it to make tarts, you can use it to make hand pies. And it bakes up beautifully—crispy and golden brown, with flaky layers for days. (There’s a reason it came out on top of our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/parametric-pie-dough">parametric analysis of pie doughs</a>!)And that’s all thanks to technique. Cutting the butter into tiny, distinct bits before mixing; keeping all the ingredients cold to limit gluten development; using letter folds to give the dough structure and strength without making it tough; and allowing the dough to rest long enough for the gluten to relax, so the dough handles like a dream and bakes up into a picture-perfect crispy, flaky crust.EDITORS&#39;’NOTE: We&#39;’e updated this recipe by rewording the step instructions to make the process clearer and including new step videos with narration so that the process is easier to follow. We’ve also written into the recipe our recommendation for chilling the flour-and-butter mixture before mixing the dough. Otherwise, the recipe is identical.

Perfect Pie Dough