Often homemade flaky pastry crust recipes from scratch can be difficult, but this single pie crust recipe is easy and foolproof. This pie dough recipe is made with butter and without shortening. When baking a perfect pie crust, we prefer to use European-style butter, such as Plugra. This has a higher percentage of butterfat. Regular butter tends to have more water. Try it. It makes a difference! You can also double this recipe to make a double-crust pie.
HINT: Try laying down a large piece of plastic wrap or wax paper on your surface, then the dough, then a second large on top. Now you can roll out your dough evenly. We love using this one for large sheets. We use this perfect pie crust recipe for savory and sweet pies, galettes, and tarts like this easy pumpkin pie recipe, French tomato tart, plum fruit galette recipe, or this cranberry tart.
Flaky Buttery Pie Crust for Pies and Tarts
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick
- cold water
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Cut the butter into the flour until it’s the size of peas.
- Then with a fork, stir in a couple of tablespoons of ice water, just until it comes together into a ball.
- Next shape it into a disk. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. At this point, you could freeze the dough to use at a later time.
- Roll out the dough.