EASY Pie Crust Recipe {made with oil} - Chocolate with Grace (2024)

FAQs

Is pie crust better with butter or oil? ›

Butter: I try to be unbiased -- all pie is good pie. But for me, butter has always been the way to go. The flavor can't be beat, and if you know how to handle it properly it can make a supremely flaky crust. Because butter has a higher melting point, it also melts nicely in your mouth.

Use Very Cold Butter or Fat

Butter, shortening, lard, or suet—whatever fat the recipe calls for should be well-chilled and cut into small pieces to start with for the flakiest crust in the end. The fat in a pie crust must maintain some of its integrity in the dough to make the crust truly flaky.

The cons: Using oil creates a mealy, breakable dough that is more difficult to roll out and transfer into a pie pan. The resulting crust will be crumbly and tender, and not as flaky as crusts made other fats.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and confectioners' sugar (see "tips," below). Work the butter into the flour mixture, using a pastry blender or fork, your fingers, or a stand mixer. Don't mix the butter in completely; leave some of it in pea-sized lumps.

Despite the great taste of butter, some bakers don't like to use it for pie crusts because it's difficult to handle. “Butter is harder to work with than shortening because it melts at a lower temperature,” Huntsberger said. It can be hard to get a flaky pie crust with butter if the butter isn't handled very carefully.

Some bakers use milk or buttermilk in their pie crust. Thanks to their milk solids, both will help crust brown and add a bit of tenderness. But the classic liquid in pie crust is water — ice water, to be precise.

The acidic properties of vinegar inhibit gluten, some will say. This theory proposes that once the water and flour are combined, gluten starts forming, causing the dough to grow tough. Adding an acid, the theory goes, stops the gluten in its tracks and rescues the crust from toughness.

Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, or up to overnight. Tip: Chilling hardens the fat in the dough, which will help the crust maintain its structure as it bakes. And the short rest before rolling relaxes the dough's gluten, helping prevent a tough crust.

Sugar: Not all pie crusts have sugar, but those that do will be more tender since sugar interferes with gluten development. In our experience, sugar can also make the pie dough so tender that it's hard to roll out and transfer to your pan without breaking. Egg: This makes the dough more pliable and easy to roll out.

This time, though, there was one very clear victor. Butter made a tastier, flakier, sturdier crust by far.

What flour is best for pies? ›

Flour: For a tender crust, choose a low-protein flour. Pastry flour, with a protein content of about 8-10%, ranks between all-purpose flour and cake flour. All-purpose flour works just fine for pie crusts, while cake flour might lack enough protein to form a workable, elastic dough.

Overworking pie dough

You should always stick to kneading your pie dough just enough so that the flour and the butter are combined, but not so much so that your dough becomes elastic and hard to work. In hindsight, the easiest way to fix an overworked pie crust is to prevent overworking it in the first place.

If the bottom crust doesn't set before the filling soaks in, it's going to be gummy. A metal pie pan placed on a preheated surface will set the bottom crust quickest; once cooked, the liquids from the filling above won't soak in, and as a result: no soggy bottom.

Butter is prized for its sweet, rich flavor and is our preferred fat for pie crust recipes, but its low melting point and overall makeup can make it difficult to work with. Unlike shortening or lard, butter is not 100% fat. It contains on average 80% butterfat, 10 to 16% water, and a small percentage of milk solids.

Butter vs.

Better flavor: butter definitely has better flavor and texture than shortening. So while shortening does have a higher melting point, butter will give you a more delicious crust with delicious flaky pockets. Deliciously flakier: butter will produce a slightly flakier crust.

Pie and tart doughs have so much butter in them that they almost self-grease as they bake. The butter melts and turns into steam and browns the bottoms making them crispy. If you add more grease into that situation, the texture of your pie crust may change in the oven. So you definitely don't want to overdo it.

If the butter is too warm, it will combine too well into the flour, making the dough hard to work with and the final crust tough or cracker-like. If you've had problems with your pie crust recipe, chances are the butter's to blame. Here's how to keep it under control: Start with cold butter, straight from the fridge.