Five common pie crust fails … and what to do about them (2024)

FAQs

Five common pie crust fails … and what to do about them? ›

Overworking pie dough

You should always stick to kneading your pie dough just enough so that the flour and the butter are combined, but not so much so that your dough becomes elastic and hard to work. In hindsight, the easiest way to fix an overworked pie crust is to prevent overworking it in the first place.

Overworking pie dough

You should always stick to kneading your pie dough just enough so that the flour and the butter are combined, but not so much so that your dough becomes elastic and hard to work. In hindsight, the easiest way to fix an overworked pie crust is to prevent overworking it in the first place.

Your dough is too crumbly.

If your pie dough breaks and crumbles when you try to roll it out, it's probably too dry. This is a relatively easy fix. Just sprinkle some cold water over the dough with your fingers and work it in—gently! —until the dough comes together.

Tough pie crusts are typically the result of working the dough too much (again, gluten). You don't need to make sure it's a perfectly uniform ball. “As long as the dough is mostly holding together, you don't need to spend a lot of time kneading it,” Susan Reid wrote for King Arthur Baking.

One of the most common baking mistakes is using ingredients that are either too cold or too hot. Room-temperature ingredients are typically best for baking, so if your recipe calls for butter, eggs, or milk at room temperature, make sure to set them out ahead of time.

Start with chilled ingredients

Butter creates a sturdy, crisp pie crust. For this, it is important to keep all ingredients cold which will inhibit the development of gluten in the flour. Use butter right out of the refrigerator and add ice-cold water to make the dough.

#2—Add cold water

Before you start making the dough, fill a glass with ice and water. Add the ice water gradually to the dough, about one tablespoon or so at a time, and stop when the dough is just moist enough to hold together when a handful is squeezed.

If too much water is added, the pie dough will require more flour and become tough. If too little water is added, you'll notice the dough is dry and crumbly when you try to roll it out and handle it. You want the dough to clump together, but not feel overly sticky.

What is one thing you should not do when making pie crust? ›

Mistake to Avoid No.

Adding more flour is always an option, but add too much flour and your dough will end up like a cracker—not a pie crust. Remember: The more you mix your pie dough, the tougher it becomes. To keep the mixing to a minimum, try rolling out your dough between two pieces of parchment paper.

Oven temperature too low; cold pastry put over hot filling; too much liquid in filling or too little filling. Insufficient liquid; too little kneading; liquid not boiling when added to flour.

Additionally, overworking the dough with your hands can start to melt the butter, preventing that flaky texture from forming. Creating pea-sized bits of butter will also prevent the butter from pooling into greasy puddles as the pie bakes.

Homemade pie crust (refrigerated): 5-7 days. Baked pie crust (at room temperature): 2-3 days. Store-bought pie crust (past expiration, refrigerated): 2-4 weeks.

A: First, don't just reach for more flour—too much extra flour will make the crust tough, and won't treat the real problem, which is that your butter is too soft. I recently read in Weller's cookbook A Good Bake that it should take no more than one to two minutes to roll out a pie crust.

Richard's solution: The trouble with pastry is that you need to be accurate; too much water and you're left with shrunken, tough pastry, too little and it stays dry and crumbly. When adding the water to the butter and flour, use very cold water and add it a tablespoonful at a time.