MSG Free All-Butter Pie Crust
A truly great pie starts with the crust, and this all-butter version delivers that golden, shatteringly flaky result that store-bought dough simply cannot match. The ingredient list is refreshingly short — just flour, salt, sugar, cold butter, and ice water — so there's no guessing about what's actually in your pastry. That simplicity is exactly what makes it such a clean choice when you're avoiding flavor enhancers and additives that sneak into pre-made crusts and mixes. The key technique here is keeping everything cold: chilled butter cubes worked into the flour until crumbly, ice water added one tablespoon at a time, and a proper rest in the refrigerator to let the gluten relax before rolling. Those visible pea-sized butter pieces are not a mistake — they're what create the flaky, tender layers once the crust hits the oven. Rolling from the center outward and folding the dough into quarters before lifting it into the dish makes transferring it a lot less stressful than it sounds. Whether you're filling it with fruit, custard, or a savory quiche, this crust is the kind of foundational recipe worth committing to memory.
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Learn more →Ingredients
8 servings
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp granulated sugar
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes and chilled
- 3–4 tbsp ice water
Instructions
- 1
Whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl until combined.
- 2
Add the chilled butter cubes to the flour mixture and work them in with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized butter pieces still visible throughout.
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