Pat-in-a-Pan Pie Crust
Confession: I have never tried to make a traditional pie crust because I’m scared of it.
The recipe
Yield: one 9-inch pie crust, about 8 servings
Time: 15 or 30 mins
Ingredients
1 ½ c (185 g) flour
1 ½ tsp (8 g) sugar
½ tsp (5 g) salt
1 stick (115 g) unsalted butter
3 tbsp (45 g) milk or cream
Instructions
1. Mix the dry ingredients in a pie pan with a fork until they’re blended well.
2. Heat the butter in the microwave just until melted but not hot.
3. Pour the milk into the butter and mix it with a fork until well blended.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix thoroughly with a fork until the mixture looks uniform and there are no bits of flour remaining.
5. Use your hands to press the dough evenly into the bottom and sides of the pie pan.
6. Baking depends on what recipe you use. If it calls for a partially baked crust, prick the bottom all over with a fork and bake on 350°F for about 8 minutes, until the crust looks dry to the touch but isn’t golden yet. If your recipe calls for a fully baked crust, prick the bottom all over with a fork and bake at 425° for 15–20 mins, until it looks golden brown.
Notes and tips
I baked this pie crust a lot, and here are the recipes I made with it.
My favorite quiche is this Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Quiche from King Arthur. I partially pre-baked the crust because quiche is a very wet mixture and I didn’t want it be soggy.
This is a great bottom crust for chicken pot pie. I partially baked the crust and then used Pepperidge Farm brand puff pastry for the top crust. You just wet the bottom of the puff pastry along the edge so that it sticks to the bottom crust.
I used the same method to make a New Zealand specialty, mince and cheese pie. I followed this recipe with a few modifications. Instead of Worcestershire sauce, I used a few splashes of red wine. I made one large pie instead of many small ones. Partially bake the crust, then fill with the cooked beef mixture and top with chunks of cheddar. (No need to cool the beef mixture first like the recipe says.) Wet the puff pastry where it will seal to the bottom crust and press firmly to adhere. Bake the whole pie at 425°F until the puff pastry is a deep golden brown and looks very flaky, 25–30 minutes.
This pie crust leans savory/salty, so if you’re making a sweet pie, double the sugar to 1 tbsp (16 g).
The story
It’s the rolling out that gets me. I’m not that skilled with a rolling pin, and though I have done tart dough, I am intimidated by pie crust. I’m going to justify myself by saying I don’t want to spend a long time making crust when the filling is labor-intensive to begin with. (Though yes, I do see the hypocrisy when it comes to my layer cakes and how much effort each part takes.) So I do the easy thing, what my mom has always done: I make a pie crust in ten minutes using a pat-in-a-pan recipe.
Normal pie crust is tricky for a few reasons. You start by cutting cold butter into the flour to coat the flour with fat. This inhibits gluten formation, which happens when you add water to flour and mix it. Gluten holds a baked good together and gives its texture. Too much gluten means a tough and bready pie crust instead of a tender one, which is why you need to be very careful about not overworking the dough. And it’s important to keep the butter cold because chunks of it in the dough create texture. When cold butter hits a hot oven, the water in it turns to steam, pushing the layers of crust apart to create flakes. If the butter absorbs into the flour through melting, it won’t flake.
But pat-in-a-pan pie crust is different. It uses oil instead of butter. Oil coats the flour strands better than butter because it’s a liquid, so you don’t have to worry about overworking a pat-in-a-pan recipe. You don’t need to worry about temperature, either, because oil doesn’t do the steaming in the oven thing. All you do is mix and bake. You can mix it right in the pan, meaning you only have to dirty a few measuring cups and one fork.
But pat-in-a-pan crust isn’t perfect. The oil is too good at inhibiting gluten formation, meaning that the crust crumbles when you cut into it and pie slices don’t hold together. And because it’s oil and not butter, the flavor isn’t as lovely. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, so I tried to make a better version of the crust I grew up with. I first tried adding more milk and less oil to the dough, but that gave me a bready texture—not what I was hoping for. I increased the oil back to the original amount but tried adding the milk first and mixing (to create some gluten) and then adding the oil (but not too much gluten), but my crust was still bready. Then I tried melted butter instead of oil, and that solved my problems. Because butter has water in it, it allows for more gluten development than oil, and melting it coats the flour just like oil does, keeping the crust tender. The texture is different from the flaky pie crust you’re used to—not quite as light, more crisp—but you might find that only ten minutes of work is worth the trade-off.
Spread the snob
If you like this recipe, please recommend Confessions of a Cake Snob to someone you know! Share this newsletter with a friend, comment on the website, or bake it and let me know how it went for you! Email me with comments, things you’d like to see, and suggestions at confessionsofacakesnob@substack.com. I’m excited to hear from you!