Do you love pie? At our house we love, love, love us some pie! There's just something so elegantly yummilicious about scrummy pie fillings neatly tucked into a golden flaky crust.
The only thing is, pie crust is kinda a bitch to make, imho, what with having to blind bake, dealing with dough shrinkage after the bake, sometimes not flaky enough, sometimes not tender enough, etc. We've tried all kinds of pie crust recipes until we finally found the ONE!
This is the one and only pie crust recipe that we use anymore. The Best and Easiest Pie Crust Ever is just that, easy peasy, there's no blind bake and it bakes up perfectly golden, buttery and flaky every single time! With the holidays just around the corner, get ready to make some pie!
Start with flour mixed with salt and sugar. Butter is sat at room temperature until slightly softened and then cubed. All this is the usual starting method for any pie crust.
Use your fingers to work the butter and the flour together until it reaches a crumblike texture. It's kinda fun just smooshing that butter around.
For this pie crust dough you don't have to worry about keeping the temperature cold as you would with normal pie crust recipes. So you can use your hands to mix the flour and butter and be done with it with very little effort.
Ta-da! Crumblike texture achieved! And now the flour is coated thoroughly with fat. This lovely coating of fat separates the flour particles from each other, helping to create a tender and flaky crust.
The next step is magic step. Sour cream is added instead of the water usually used for pie dough.
So what's the magic? Why does the addition of sour cream make for a tender flaky crust? More fat, that's what! Sour cream has a fat content of 20%. Mixed in, all that fat from the sour cream also coats the flour particles, keeping water away, which is the trick to a nice and tender crust.
Sour cream also has a 74% water content, which is just enough moisture to bring the dough together.
To mix the sour cream in, we use a fork. Mix until the mixture just comes together and no more. Don't worry if there are little spots of sour cream still to be seen. That's okay.
Scrape it all onto cling film and press into a ball. Then flatten that ball down. Time to chill the dough!
Chill the dough just enough so that you can roll it out. Too hard, it's impossible to roll. Too soft, it's really hard to lift onto the pie/tart onto the pan after rolling. Roll the dough out evenly.
It's always tricky to lift the rolled out dough onto the pie/tart pan. My trick to do this easily is to roll out the dough on a silicon mat. Once the dough is rolled out to the proper size I just lift the dough along with the silicon mat and flip it over onto the pie/tart pan. Seriously makes the whole thing much easier! Just flip and plop.
Use fingers to gently ease the rolled out dough to fit the pie/tart pan. Use a knife to cut off any extra dough. Any holes just use cut off dough to plug.
We cut the dough off at the top of our pan as you can see in the photo above. You don't really have to worry about shrinkage with this dough so cutting it even with the pan is totally okay.
Here's the coolest part about this amazing crust: there is no need to blind bake this pie crust dough. Do you know how much time and effort that saves? Yippee yay!
The dough filled pie pan just needs to be chilled and then the pie filling can be added straight to the dough. In the photo above you can see that we used a wet filling, a pumpkin pie filling made from the roasted remains of our yearly jack-o'-lantern. 🎃
Even with a wet filling this pie crust is gonna bake up just fine time after time. You're gonna get a tender flaky pie crust, just as promised. And look at the bottom of our baked tart. See how well it holds up even with a totally liquid filling? No more soggy bottoms!
Omgosh I love this crust! It's the bestest and easiest pie crust ever. Try this amazing crust for yourself and just see if you ever go back!
Best and Easiest Pie Crust Ever
(adapted from recipe here)
(makes enough for 10" double crust) Prep time: 15 mins Bake time: 0 mins
Ingredients:
- 10" tart pan
- silicone mat
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 312g
- 10 oz unsalted butter, 283g
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp sour cream, 154g
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar
Directions:
Let butter warm up for a few minutes at room temperature until just softened. Cut the butter into cubes.
Whisk together flour, sugar and salt. Add to butter cubes and then work flour into butter using your hands until mixture becomes crumblike.
Add sour cream and vanilla. Use a fork to mix it in until a dough forms. Separate dough into two equal balls. (Tip: To get equal sized pieces weigh the dough.)
Scrape the dough balls onto pieces of cling film. Wrap cling film around the dough and then pat at the wrapped dough to form round disk shapes. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours or until firm enough to roll out. If you're using only one piece of the dough now wrap the second dough round in a ziplock and place in the freezer. The dough can store for up to 3 months.
Dust working surface lightly with flour. I strongly recommend that you use a silicon mat to roll out with. Place one round of dough on surface. Dust your rolling pin with flour. Roll the dough out to a 12 inch circle. Or however big your tart/pie pan needs to cover everything. As you roll dust lightly with flour as needed to prevent sticking.
Now to move your beautifully rolled out thin pie crust dough to the pie pan. Here's where the genius of rolling out on a silicon mat becomes clear. Lift the mat, rolled out dough and all, and flip it over the pie pan, aiming to be centered over the pan. The dough will release from the mat by itself. Gently press the dough to fill the shape of the pan. Use sharp knife to cut off any extra dough. Use extra dough to patch any areas that need it.
Chill in the fridge for an hour before use. There is no need to blind bake this crust. Pour/add filling directly onto the chilled dough and bake the pie as indicated by your pie recipe.
We hope you find this pie crust as wonderful as we do and that you can make many, many wonderful pies with it! Let us know whatcha think!
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