All Butter Pie Crust

Jump to Recipe

Salted butter, All purpose flour, granulated sugar, salt, and water are all you need to create the perfect all butter pie crust.

It’s officially pie season. 🥧 I absolutely love making pies, and the crust is basically the edible glue that holds it all together (figuratively and literally). If you don’t have stable pie crust, your entire pie will crumble when cut. Albeit still delicious, its not user friendly for the poor soul whose responsibility lies with cutting the pie. If your pie crust is too stiff, it will be dry and lack flavor. Now many of you know that I’m not a big fan of oil, and I don’t care for shortening at all. It’s a personal preference, mainly to do with flavor. This all butter pie crust is perfectly buttery, a tad sweet, and bakes up flaky and full of flavor + stable enough for your most intense pie fillings. Here’s how to make it.

What you’ll need to make this all butter pie crust:

All Purpose Flour

Salt

Granulated Sugar

Salted Butter

Cold Water

The Crust

This crust begins with blending your dry ingredients together. Now I prefer a standing mixer, but you can absolutely do this by hand. Ensure that you have a pastry cutter for the butter part, and if you do try to use a hand mixer, be sure that it’s a strong one that can handle a thicker dough.

To your dry ingredients (the flour, the salt, and the sugar) you will add the cold cubed butter. Mix this on low or low-medium until a wet-sand-like consistency forms. Add the cold water a tablespoon at a time to ensure that you don’t add to much water. You can add a bit more flour if this does happen, so don’t worry that its ruined, but too much added flour can alter the flavor and the consistency of the final product. I use five tablespoons of water and it comes out perfect every single time. Mix until a dough just forms. Do not overmix or the crust can come out on the heavy side and not as flaky.

The Rollout + the Bake

One of the best parts of this dough is that it is no-chill, meaning that it doesn’t need time in the refrigerator to firm up. You can simple make and roll!

Roll your dough out onto a clean surface that’s been lightly floured. Using a rolling pin, roll your dough to a circle slightly bigger than the size of your pie pan. My favorite pie pan is nine inches, so I generally roll out to eleven or so. This ensures that I have ample room to take the pie crust up the edges and trim the tops for a clean finish.

After rolling the pie dough out, carefully fold it over your roller, and place it in your pie pan. Gently press the bottom down and press down around the edges, crimping the edges if desired. If you are adding additional pie crust cutout “cookie” decor around the top perimeter of your pie, trim the top of your pie crust with a serrated knife so that the edges are even with the top of the pie pan.

If you are filling your pie with something that does not need to be baked, like my favorite homemade chocolate cream pie, you will blind bake your crust. This means the crust will bake without the filling, and you will want to take two steps to ensure that it comes out perfectly baked. First, line the bottom with a parchment paper circle cutout. Second, fill the pie with dry beans, dry rice, or ceramic pie weights to ensure that the bottom does not puff up during the blind bake. Bake the pie at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until the edges are lightly golden brown.

Remove the pie crust and allow it to cool for 15 minutes before removing the pie weights. Be cautious as they could still be hot. Use a large spoon to gently remove them, and then peel the parchment paper off. Your pie is ready to fill when it has completely cooled to room temperature. If you are baking the crust with the filling inside, you do not need to bake the pie crust first, although sometimes if your filling is a bit on the wetter side, a ten minute bake can help to ensure that the bottom dough wont get saturated and end up mushy. For pies like pumpkin and apple, I like to blind bake the crust for ten minuets, but this is not necessary. If you do blind bake the pie first before baking the filled pie, ensure that you watch that the edges do not burn. You can cover the edges with a pie ring to keep this from happening.

Savory Version + Double

This pie crust is perfect for quiches, pot pies, or just a pie that you want an unsweetened pie crust for. Simply omit the sugar and continue to make as instructed.

You can also double this recipe and add a full top layer for pies that requires two crusts, or for something like a pot pie. I love doing this so I can have a good amount of extra dough for a lattice top, some cutout designs on the edges or the middle, and so on. You can add a drop or two of gel food coloring to color your pie crust as well. This is particularly fun for a festive top layer.

You can make this pie crust ahead of time and wrap it in plastic wrap to refrigerate for three days before use. You can also freeze it wrapped for two months.

The Dietary Substitutions

I love providing gluten and dairy free substitutions so that those with alternate dietary needs can enjoy my recipes to their fullest! These are subs that I have either used and continue to stock in my own home, or that have come highly recommended from others. I want your baking experience to be the best it can be, and avoiding gluten or dairy shouldn’t hinder that process in the slightest. 

As always, here is a list of tried and true dietary substitutes, so that you can enjoy this recipe without the additions of gluten or dairy. 

Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Baking Flour is a wonderful all-purpose sub, and it’s cup for cup, so use the same measurements as you would all-purpose flour. 

Miyokos butter is a plant based brick that closely resembles dairy butter not only in its look, but it’s taste as well. It melts, browns, and spreads just like real butter, and truly is a fantastic substitute in this recipe. Use it as a 1:1 ratio sub, same as the flour, so the recipe measurements will not change. 

I hope you love this super simple all butter pie crust! It’s been a staple in so many of my baked goods, and I’m so thrilled to finally be giving it the spotlight it deserves. Happy baking!

XO,

Heather