No-stress all-butter pastry crust from BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts (page 150) by Stella Parks

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Always check the publication for a full list of ingredients. An Eat Your Books index lists the main ingredients and does not include 'store-cupboard ingredients' (salt, pepper, oil, flour, etc.) - unless called for in significant quantity.

Notes about this recipe

  • Nlynn on November 02, 2020

    Did not like the results here. The crust was actually crunchy, not what I am looking for in a pie crust. It is also a very difficult dough to work with. Going back to the Kenji Lopez-Alt pie crust that never fails to be tasty and easy to make and work with.

  • stockholm28 on January 13, 2020

    This was the flakiest pie dough that I’ve ever made. The top crust was crisp like a croissant and the bottom crust had no soggy bottom. This dough is made by hand and uses a folding technique to create layers. This is truly a case where a picture is worth a thousand words. This recipe is included in Food 52 Genius Desserts along with pictures of how to fold the dough. I don’t know why the pictures of how to fold the dough were left out of Bravetart, The recipe is on the Serious Eats site (with photos) here: https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/06/how-to-make-a-beautifully-flaky-pie-crust.html

  • khopkins1012 on October 25, 2019

    Only pie crust recipe that I use

  • Kinhawaii on January 17, 2019

    I agree with anya_sf, dough was springy, butter bubbled up the sides, needed browning without the foil, had lots of shrinkage. I think I should have rolled it out bigger & refrigerated it, like another website advised, after forming the discs & whenever it felt too soft. My kitchen is probably never cooler than 72°F though. I needed to use lots of flour to keep it from sticking too. It came out crisp & flaky but I felt like I overworked it. I have made lots of different pie & tart crusts & I wouldn't say this one is easy to work with if you are inexperienced.

  • roxlet on June 28, 2018

    I consider myself a very experienced pie baker, and I love this crust. However, I do think the recipe was a bit scant for two crusts, so I converted the weights to grams and scaled it up by 25%. I'm much happier with a slightly larger amount of dough to deal with. Baking the crust with sugar instead of beans is a game-changer for me. Put the foil over the crust as you would before filling it with beans, and then fill with sugar. Make sure to save the sugar separately and you will have Stella's wonderful toasted sugar.

  • anya_sf on November 26, 2017

    I doubled the recipe for 4 crusts, rolling it into a 20"x15" rectangle, then dividing before folding. That worked well. Mixing by hand was surprisingly easy, although I had to add a couple of extra tablespoons of water for a cohesive dough. I had some trouble rolling the rounds, as the dough was very springy. The rolled dough chilled 4-5 hours before pre-baking, and I filled the crusts to the rim with sugar. Still, the crusts needed 75 minutes before they were done, and even so they shrunk, plus some butter leaked out of the crusts and onto the sheet pan. I'm not sure what, if anything, I did wrong, as I tried to follow the instructions precisely, and my oven thermometer said my oven was at 350. Even with these problems, the resulting crusts were so flavorful, flaky, tender, and crisp (even after storage), that I would definitely recommend this recipe.

  • rionafaith on November 23, 2017

    Usually I make pie crust in the food processor, but I gave this simple by-hand method a try and it worked out great. Love the technique of folding several times, similar to making puff pastry. So far I've only used this to make the apple pie from the same book, but it came out great and made for a nice flaky crust. My brother, not a pie eater, kept tearing off pieces of the edges to eat and when I called him out on it said, "What? It's good crust!" Later he asked if I could make him "just a pie crust with no filling" sometime. A ringing endorsement?

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