Pie Crust - Blog Posts

Super Flaky All-Butter Pie Crust

No matter the filling you use, the backbone of any good pie is the light, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth crust. As such an important part of the pie experience, it can seem very daunting to make it yourself: you need to keep the dough cold, not overwork it, and why does every recipe want lard or shortening?!

Luckily, after much time searching, I have found the most amazing recipe combo that has all of the buttery-flakiness you expect from a pie crust with minimal effort!

In addition to wanting to learn how to make pie crust, I decided to give it a go because Heroes’ Feast calls for a lot of “sheets of pie crust” and no matter how hard I searched my grocery stores, I could never find it. So, I hope that all of you in a similar situation can use this for your pies! You’ll find that going back to store-bought will never be the same.

See below for my tips and tricks for making your own buttery, super flaky crust at home!

(This recipe is both inspired by and a modification of Katy Perry’s pie crust (here) and a food processor method I found (here))

Prep: ~5 mins               Cook time: ~1h 15 mins                   Overall: ~1h 20 mins

For the ingredients:

2 ½ cups (313 g) all-purpose flour

20 tbsp. (284 g) salted butter

½ cup (118 ml) ice-cold water

TIP: If you don’t have salted butter, use 20 tbsp. unsalted butter and add ½ tsp. + ⅛ tsp. of kosher salt.

If using salted butter, add 1 ½ cups (188 g) of flour to the food processor.

If using unsalted butter, combine 1 ½ cups (188 g) of flour and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine (4-5 pulses).

Scatter butter cubes over the flour mixture and process until dough or paste begins to form (above-left). This should take ~15 secs and there should be no uncoated flour.

Next, redistribute the flour-butter mixture in the food processor (above-right).

Add the remaining 1 cup (125 g) of flour and pulse until the flour is properly distributed and becomes crumbly. This usually takes me ~7-8 pulses.

Transfer dough to a medium-sized mixing bowl. To help keep the dough cool, I put the bowl in the fridge when I start preparing the ingredients.

Sprinkle 4 tbsp. of ice-cold water over the dough. Use a rubber spatula to press the dough pieces together until they start to form larger clumps.

To test if it’s ready, take a piece of dough and pinch it between your fingers (above-left). If it holds together, you’re good to go. If it crumbles, add 2-4 more tbsp. and keep combining.

Once the dough is ready keep the dough in the bowl or transfer it to a clean surface and work it just enough so that it forms a ball.

NOTE: I would definitely advise starting with 4 tbsp. of ice-cold water. I thought I had added enough after 2 tbsp. (directed in Katy Perry’s recipe) but the dough kept breaking when I took it out of the fridge to roll out. This isn’t as much of an issue when using 4 tbsp.

Cut your dough ball into two halves and press them into discs. Wrap each half in cling wrap and let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour or up to 2 days before rolling it out (it should feel super hard).

If you’re pre-making your dough, it can stay in the freezer for up to 3 months! Just remember to thaw it out in the fridge overnight before using.

Personally, I would rate this pie crust recipe a 5/5. As long as you take care to not let the dough get too warm, your pie crust will be as buttery, light, and flaky as can be!

The pies shown in this post are the Elven Maruths on p. 64. Get the book here!: https://dnd.wizards.com/heroes-feast

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