How to Make Better Pie Crust, According to a Pastry Chef

There is a lot of subtlety that goes into making a good pie crust, the types of intuitive moves or small tips you pick up in a professional kitchen (or by baking with an experienced relative). But a few principles make all the difference: keeping the butter cold, avoiding overmixing, letting the dough rest, and baking the finished pie long enough.

Below, and in my book A Good Bake, I cover the little things that matter, from making and rolling out pie dough to crimping the crust and knowing when a pie is done. These are the techniques I use to make delicious, professional-looking pies, no matter what recipe I'm following.

How to make flaky pie crust

Start with great pie dough.

A pie is only as good as its crust. I use a few different recipes for pie crust, but my go-to pie dough is pâte brisée. Brisée means “broken” in French, and in this dough, the butter is “broken” into the flour, creating a layered, flaky crust. Pâte sucrée, by contrast, means “sugar dough.” It contains sugar and egg and is prepared like a cookie dough, with the butter and sugar creamed together.

Plan ahead.

In a professional bakery, cooks prepare pie dough up to several days in advance. Set yourself up the same way at home. Making the dough ahead gives it time to rest and chill, so it’s ready to roll when you need it. You can also freeze pie dough up to one month in advance; wrap it well and defrost it overnight in the fridge.

Choose between butter and lard.

The essential ingredients in pie dough are flour, water, a pinch of salt, maybe a very small amount of sugar, and some fat. Many traditional American pie dough recipes call for lard, rendered pork fat, which makes for an exceptionally flaky crust.

I love lard, but quality lard is not always easy to find, so I use good old-fashioned unsalted butter for my pie and tart crusts. With good technique, you can achieve plenty of flakiness and get that great buttery flavor.

Make sure your butter chunks are big and cold.

Many pie recipes call for cutting the butter into ¼" cubes. I prefer largish ½" chunks. After cutting the butter into pieces, I arrange them onto a plate and freeze them for 10 minutes so the butter gets as cold as can be without turning rock solid.

When mixed into the flour, some larger chunks remain intact. When you roll out the dough, those chunks form striations of butter. As the crust bakes, the water in the butter turns to steam, creating microscopic flaky layers—and a light, tender crust.

Looking for maximum flake? Check out our guide to laminating pie dough →

Use cold water.

Lots of recipes call for adding ice water to the dough. I find that cold water from my refrigerator (like from a water filter or door dispenser) works fine. That said, if you want to use super-chilled water, it certainly won’t hurt.

Add water only after you mix the flour and butter. When the water joins the party, gluten starts to form. Too much gluten development toughens pie dough, making the finished crust heavy and dense rather than light and flaky. Mixing the flour with cold butter first coats the flour’s proteins, impeding the interaction between the water and the flour and reducing gluten development.

Don’t overmix.

You might be tempted to mix pie dough until it forms a homogeneous mass, like cookie dough. Resist. Mix only until the dough begins to come together. When you transfer the dough to the counter, it should still be a bit crumbly and shaggy, with small, observable chunks of butter. The dry bits will hydrate and come together as the dough rests. And on that note:

Let the dough rest before rolling.

After bringing the dough together, I shape it into a round disk or brick, depending on the shape I’ll roll it into. Then I wrap it in plastic wrap, run a rolling pin over it to compact and flatten it, and put it in the refrigerator to rest.

A good rest lets the flour fully absorb any moisture so that the dough comes together completely. Resting the dough also relaxes the gluten, making it easier to roll out and less likely to shrink in the oven.

If your kitchen runs warm, work quickly and give the dough extra time in the refrigerator whenever it starts to feel soft or tacky. You can also chill your mixing bowl, bench scraper, and rolling pin before you start.

How to roll out pie crust

Roll out the dough swiftly and with confidence.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator, put it on the counter, and let it sit until it feels malleable but still firm (10 to 15 minutes) before rolling. The goal is for the dough to be just pliable enough to roll but not so soft that it starts to stick. Conversely, rolling our cold dough straight from the fridge can cause it to crack.

In the meantime, clear space and have your rolling pin ready, along with anything else you might need, such as a bench knife, cookie cutter, straightedge, pastry wheel, knife, and flour (or, in some cases, sugar) for dusting your work surface. Whatever will happen to the dough after rolling, make sure those supplies are ready, too: line a baking sheet with parchment paper or have your pie pan ready so you can go right from rolling to assembly, no warming dough waiting on your counter.

Once you start rolling, move quickly. Even the firmest dough block will soften quickly under the friction of the rolling pin and the heat of your hands. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a minute or two.

How to shape and crimp pie crust

Butter the pie plate.

It may be unconventional, but I always butter a pie plate before arranging the dough. The butter helps hold the dough in place as I shape it and provides insurance for removing it from the pan after baking. I smear enough butter on the bottom and sloped sides of the plate to leave a visible layer. I usually use cold butter, but slightly softened also works.

Transfer the dough carefully.

There are two ways to “line” a pie plate—that is, to make sure the dough fits snugly inside. Either fold the dough in half, lift it from the surface you rolled it out on, and place it in the pan. Or roll the dough onto your rolling pin and carry it over on the pin. I fold the dough when lining a round pie plate, and I roll it onto a rolling pin when using a jelly roll pan, which requires a larger piece. Use whatever method you find easiest.

In either case, carry the dough until it hovers over the pie plate, tart pan, jelly roll pan, or other vessel, centering it as much as you can. Then gently lay it onto the dish and unfold or unroll it. Adjust the dough so that it’s centered on the pan.

Fit the dough into the pan.

Gently lift one edge of the dough with one hand and use the other to press it into the bottom of the pan, working your way around the perimeter. Use a delicate touch, and resist pulling the dough, which will cause it to spring back when baked and create thin spots in the crust.

Next, gently run your finger along the rim to press the dough onto it, just enough to ensure it adheres. This allows you to see how much dough is overhanging. Make sure it is even all the way around and sitting nicely on top of the rim.

Trim the excess dough.

Use kitchen shears to trim the overhanging dough so there is an even 1" hanging over the perimeter of the pie dish. (Discard the trimmings or smush them together into a disk and refrigerate or freeze the dough to make a pie another day.)

If you are making a double-crust or lattice-topped pie, trim the top sheet of dough or lattice so it is flush with the outside edge of the pan.

Crimp the crust.

In piemaking, “crimping” means forming the decorative, wavy edge around the perimeter of a pie. To crimp, tightly roll the overhanging dough toward the center of the pie to form a thick lip that rests on the ridge of the plate. While many recipes call for folding the excess dough under, I prefer folding it up and over. When you’re finished, the dough shouldn't hang over the rim.

The process is the same whether you are making a single- or double-crust pie. For a double crust, roll the bottom crust over the top crust, sealing the filling inside.

As you form this ridge, use your fingers to shape the edge of the rolled crust so that it is rounded and even. Once the entire edge is rolled, place the index finger and thumb of one hand on the inside edge of the ridge and use the index finger of your other hand to push the outside edge toward the center of the pie, forming a V or U shape. Continue around the perimeter until you have crimped the entire crust.

Chill the pie. Freeze it, even.

There is a lot of chilling when making pie. First, you chill the butter. Then you chill the finished dough before rolling it out. You’ll also want to chill the pie dish after lining it, and again after crimping and filling the dough, before baking.

If you’ve ever wondered why pies in professional bakeries look so much prettier than your homemade ones, it’s because they chill them—or even freeze them—before baking. Chilling the uncooked pie helps it hold its shape better during baking.

In my kitchens, we often freeze a fully assembled fruit pie (overnight is best), then bake it directly from frozen. To bake a frozen pie, put it in the oven straight from the freezer and add 10 to 20 minutes to the total baking time, using the recipe’s visual indicators for doneness in the recipe.

How to bake a pie properly

Give it a stage.

Always put a baking sheet under pies before baking. This is especially important with fruit pies, to prevent the bubbling fruit juices from spilling over the edge of the pan onto your oven floor.

Blind bake when you need to.

Also called pre- or par-baking, blind baking refers to baking the crust before adding the filling. For many custard pies, which cook faster than fruit pies, you’ll partially blind-bake the crust to keep it from getting soggy or even staying raw. For pies and tarts whose fillings are not baked at all, you’ll blind bake the crust until it’s fully golden brown

To blind bake a crust, line the shaped, crimped, unbaked pie shell with parchment paper (crinkle the paper first to fit the pie shell better), then fill the parchment-lined dough with pie weights to prevent the crust from puffing while it bakes. BA’s favorite pie weights are inexpensive steel ball bearings, but many cooks use dried beans or rice; label any food items you use as “pie weights” when the pie is done, since they will not be good for cooking after baking.

For the full technique, see BA’s guide to blind-baking pie crust.

Don’t skimp on the bake time.

Depending on how cold the pie is when you put it in the oven—and depending on your oven’s hot spots and other quirks—baking time can vary, so I always rely on the recipe’s visual cues for doneness.

The crust should be a rich shade of golden brown. For a fruit pie, the filling must be bubbling through the lattice in the center of the pie or the vent cut into its top. If the filling isn't bubbling in the center (not just around the sides), the fruit hasn't cooked down enough. Remove it too early, and you risk a filling that weeps when you cut a slice.

Custard pies must bake until they are set. A set custard will wobble slightly when you jiggle the pan, but it shouldn’t slosh around like liquid. Avoid baking a custard pie so long that it’s fully set, which can cause surface cracks as the pie cools.

Let the pie cool before slicing.

Cooling time is essential to pie making. Custard pies need to set (and sometimes chill for several hours), and fruit pies need ample time to gel and firm. For beautiful slices that hold their shape, the wait is worthwhile.

Pie crust troubleshooting

Is it time to bake yet?

Adapted with permission from A Good Bake: The Art and Science of Making Perfect Pastries, Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Breads at Home by Melissa Weller. Copyright © 2020 by Melissa Weller. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Editor’s note: Originally published in November 2020, this guide has been updated with additional troubleshooting advice by Phoebe Fry.