Flaky, buttery, melt in your mouth crust

After having the chicken pot pie last week, I decided to make beef pot pie over the weekend.  It is important to have a good pie crust.  I have been cheating and buying my pie crusts lately.  They just were not as good at the crust on the chicken pot pie at the restaurant. 

I looked up a good old-fashioned pie crust recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour (I used white/wheat 50/50 split)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter (cold or frozen) chopped into pieces
1/4 cup Crisco chilled
3-4 Tablespoons Ice water
(1/2 tsp salt unless you use salted butter)


Cold Butter and Crisco to be mixed with flour

In a food processor or blender, mix the flour, butter and Crisco while still cold until it looks like cornmeal with pea sized butter and Crisco in the mix.  Add cold water and continue to blend. The trick is to mix it while it is cold.  My food processor took a dive last winter and I didn't replace it yet.  I used my bullet which was too small.  I had to pour it out and need it by hand I was careful not to over mix it.

Pie dough

I molded it into about a 3 inch disk and put it back in the fridge until I was ready to use it the next day.  I used my pie mat to roll it out.  Before I started the cooking, I put the pan upside down on the mat to measure the size that I would need.  The diameter was about 8 inches and I wanted it to roll over the side.


Flour Dusted Matt

 With a well dusted mat, I rolled out the dough to just under 10 inches cold is critical for placing it I learned after letting one set on a plate.  The other one I took straight from the mat to the pan. 


Dough rolled out just over 8"

 The crust was thicker than a typical pie crust; not by much but a little bit.  It was flaky, buttery and melted in the mouth!  I heard someone explain the key to getting a flaky crust is cold and not completely mixed together.  If there are minor pockets of butter and Crisco, they put the levels of separation into the dough as it is cooked making it flaky as well as leaving the mouth watering buttery taste.  The rest of the recipe will be posted later.  Watch for it!