My favorite flaky, delicious buttermilk pie crust (made with a food processor). This is seriously the easiest pie dough you will ever make or work with!
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I have a ton of foundation recipes or simple tips and tricks I have been wanting to add to the blog but just haven’t been able to fit into the Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule.
I’ve simply published a couple of them backdated in the feed so I can link to them in recipes, but adding another posting day to the schedule seemed like the best compromise to make sure they are seen (and can therefore be of use), so every other Saturday, we’ll have a simple recipe, trick, or maybe a round up I’ve been dying to do.
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Okay, table setting aside. On to the recipe: My Favorite Buttermilk Pie Crust! You’ve seen this recipe before. I used it for my Green Eggs and Ham Mini Quiche, my Easy Beef Pasties, and it will show up again in a recipe this Friday, but I know pie crust can be intimidating for a lot of people (it certainly was for me), so I wanted to do a step by step walk through.
I LOVE this pie crust for these reasons, in this order:
- It’s SO delicious and flaky. It’s an all butter crust, and nothing beats the rich taste of pure butter in pie crust.
- It’s incredibly easy to work with when rolling out and shaping.
- It’s the easiest thing in the world to make. Seriously. I have pictures to prove it.
This method uses a food processor. You CAN make this dough with a pastry cutter* and a bowl–that’s how I make most of my other pie crusts to ensure a nice and flaky finished product, but this dough produces such a flaky crust that making it in the food processor doesn’t seem to affect it at all. So for the convenience, if at all possible, I say use a food processor!
If you don’t own one, this is the food processor I have*, and I love it.
This recipe makes about 24 ounces of dough. That’s enough for two 9-inch crusts. A half batch will make a single 9-inch crust or two 6-inch pie crusts for mini pies. If you have a small food processor, I recommend making only a half batch at a time, as the 5-cup models will have trouble processing this amount of dough.
And now how to make the easiest buttermilk pie crust in the world:
Dump all the dry ingredients in your food processor.
Add chilled butter and pulse until butter is about the size of a pea.
Drizzle in buttermilk…
…and pulse until mixture just begins to clump together.
You know it’s done and has enough liquid if it holds its shape when pressed together.
Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and dump half of the mixture onto the wrap.
Press tightly into a disk (if you are going to make full, round crusts, make your disk as circular as possible since it will make rolling easier later–these were destined to become mini pie crusts so I didn’t bother) and repeat with the other half of the crumbs. Store in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least an hour, up to two days before using.
Roll out, shape, and make into something delicious like:
- Easy Dutch Apple Pie
- Game of Thrones Frey Pie
- Pie Crust Pizza Tarts
- Individual Chicken Pot Pies
- Mini Dutch Apple Galette
P.S. If you have any leftover scraps of pie dough, check out this post on What to Do With Leftover Pie Dough.
My Favorite Buttermilk Pie Crust
Ingredients
Full Batch (9-inch Double Crust)
- 1 cup (8oz, 2 sticks) cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 2 1/2 cups (300g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon (13g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 to 2/3 cup buttermilk*
Half Batch (9-inch Single Crust or 6-inch Double Crust)
- 8 tablespoons (4oz, 1 stick) cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 1 1/4 cups (150g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup buttermilk
Quarter Batch (6-inch Single Crust)
- 4 tablespoons (2oz) cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2-inch chunks
- 1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons (75g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons buttermilk
Instructions
- Before you begin measuring everything out, place the cubed butter in the freezer to chill.
- Stir together flour, sugar, and salt, and pour into the food processor. Add butter and pulse until butter is cut into the flour, but still has visible chunks no larger than a pea.
- While pulsing, slowly pour in 1/2 cup of the buttermilk (1/4 for half batch, 2 tablespoons for a quarter batch) and continue to pulse until the buttermilk is incorporated into the dough. At this point, your dough should look like rough crumbs and just hold its shape if squeezed together. If the dough does not, add a a little more buttermilk, a teaspoon at a time.
- Lay a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and dump half of your dough crumbs onto the sheet. (If you are making only a single crust, do not divide dough.) Gather the edges and press tightly together to form a 1-inch thick disk. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Place in a plastic bag and refrigerate for at least an hour, up to 24.
Notes
Nutritional Information
Recipe Adapted From: B.Britnell
Make-ahead Instructions: This dough does very well when made ahead of time. Simply store as shown, in the refrigerator, and use within 48 hours or freeze.
Freezer Instructions: Freeze plastic-wrapped dough in a freezer bag and keep for up to 3 months. To use, defrost in the refrigerator overnight.
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