The Best Gluten Free Pie Crust Recipe {Tried and True!} - Fearless Dining (2024)

FAQs

Why is my gluten free pie crust so hard? ›

Too much flour in pie crust makes it tough and, for gluten-free, gritty.

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.

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.

What does that vinegar do? The most common answer — that it affects gluten development — isn't actually that useful. If you had a mass spectrometer at home, you could measure the teensy difference vinegar makes in the tensile strength of gluten strands in the dough, which in theory makes it a bit more tender.

Add xanthan gum to gluten-free flour. It enhances elastic qualities that gluten-free flours lack, making it easier to work with and less likely to crumble.

“My preferred fat for pie crusts will always be butter. To me, it is all about flavor, and no other fat gives flavor to a crust like butter does. Other fats, even though they have great pros, lack flavor,” De Sa Martins said. “The more flavorful the butter, the more flavor your pie crust will have,” Huntsberger added.

The acid in the apple cider vinegar tenderizes the dough by slowing the gluten production in the dough. This prevents it from getting tough and elastic like bread dough. Love me tender. If you've ever bitten into a slice of pie with a tough crust, you know the value in a tender, flaky pie crust.

Egg: The egg in this recipe acts as a binder that allows for a flakier, more delicate crust. It also binds all of your ingredients together so that you can roll out your pie dough without it breaking apart.

Gluten is what makes bread soft and stretchy – it's desirable in bread, but not in pie dough. Rather, pie dough should be flaky and tender! So, it's important to use cold butter and ice water with your flour, as the coldness interrupts gluten development. Try to not handle the dough too much when mixing.

Should pie dough be cold before baking? ›

Once the dough is shaped and crimped, the last thing you want to do bake it right away. Chilling the shaped pie allows the aforementioned gluten to relax and the butter to get nice and cold again, both of which help your pie hold its shape better once it's in the oven.

This is the easy and famous '3, 2, 1' pie crust. It's 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, and 1 part liquid - along with some salt and/or sugar for flavor. Those who have read my post on ratios know that these "parts" are by weight and not volume, so this is when owning a scale becomes useful.

Conventional wisdom holds that you need to prebake a pie crust that will have a no-bake filling added later. But with graham cracker and other cookie crusts, you really don't need to, as the unbaked crust holds together well after simply chilling or freezing.

Another option is brushing with melted butter as a finishing touch. Is it better to use an egg wash or butter on your pie crust? We are Team Egg Wash (or Cream Wash). While melted butter adds more flavor than the washes, it is less effective in look; it gives a speckled appearance to pastry.

1) Start with a good recipe

To maintain its shape during baking, pastry needs liquid to activate the flour's gluten. For flaky, tender texture, it also requires fat. The balance of those two ingredients is critical. Too much fat and the crust loses its structure and shrinks; too much liquid, it's hard and leathery.

Gluten-free batters need a longer bake time.

Because gluten-free batters contain more liquid than traditional versions, they typically take longer to bake. If you remove them from the oven too soon, you may develop a gummy, mushy texture.

Bake longer.

Gluten-free flours are typically thirstier and need more hydration. So when you see our gluten-free focaccia bakes for 50–60 minutes—compared to 20–30 for our gluten-y focaccia—don't be alarmed. It's all on purpose.

Baking quick breads at too high temperatures can cause a hard outside crust. Most quick breads bake in a moderate oven (350°F to 375°F). Double check your recipe to see the temperature they recommend. Oven thermostats can vary over time, requiring adjustments by the baker or calibration by a professional.