My Oma gave me this pie crust recipe about 4 years ago, and I’ve never gone back since. It’s simple, flaky, and delicious enough to eat by itself. You can even freeze it for up to a month or make it 1-2 days ahead of time. I use this same crust for anything from Pie Crust cookies (which will be the next post), to double-crusted fruit pies, to pumpkin pie. It’s truly versatile and nearly impossible to ruin. Just follow the recipe and you’ll be golden!

Note: This recipe makes two crusts, so if you are making a single-crust pie, freeze one of them for the future.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, refrigerated and cut into small cubes (DO NOT soften your butter for this recipe)

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup cold water (make sure it’s cold, not room temperature)

That’s it! Talk about a simple recipe 🙂

Mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Then, add your butter and use a pastry cutter (or two knives, or a fork), to cut the cubes into small pieces coated in the flour.

Continue this process until the dough looks like the image below. The butter has been well-incorporated, but it’s still pebbly and some clumps stick together to form larger clumps. As you can see, I switched from knives to a fork, I find a fork works best once the butter is cut into small chunks.

Next, add the water. Mix the water in, then begin bringing the dough into a ball. It will be a shaggy looking ball, with bits falling off, but it should come together. If it doesn’t, add a little bit of additional water as needed (usually a small handful at a time). Then, wrap your ball in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days. This step is essential for a good pie crust.

Once the dough has chilled, you can roll it out and use it for your recipe. Don’t soften the dough before rolling it out, you may have to work harder to get it to flatten in the beginning, but the key to pie crust is a cold dough. See? Pie Crust is not nearly as daunting as we all think 🙂