Making pie for Thanksgiving? Try this no-mixer-required, make-ahead crust recipe
Thanksgiving will be here before you know it, so for anyone hosting or who offered to handle dessert, this pie crust recipe is perfect to make ahead this weekend and store in the freezer until you're ready to assemble and serve on Turkey Day.
Cookbook author and content creator Jeremy Scheck has a delicious no-mixer-required pie dough that has become a go-to for Thanksgiving.
"Everything that can be done ahead should be done ahead so you're not stressed. And for me, that includes homemade pie dough," Scheck, the creator behind Scheck Eats, told "Good Morning America."
"There's really no reason to buy store-bought pie dough, which is usually not made with butter, so it doesn't taste as good," he continued. "Making it yourself and keeping it in the freezer is just as easy as having the premade stuff on the day that you make your pies."
According to Scheck, this viral make-ahead pie dough recipe "has reached about 6 million views across platforms."
"It uses a special faux-lamination technique that gives it a puff pastry-like texture and a bit of vodka in the dough to inhibit gluten formation."
Check out the full recipe below, and prepare your favorite fall filling -- apple, cranberry, pecan or another holiday favorite -- accordingly!
Make ahead Thanksgiving Pie Dough - Pâte Brisée
"Pie crust should not contain more than 5 ingredients," Scheck writes alongside this recipe. "I guarantee that this recipe yields enough dough for one double crust pie or two single crust pies. If you are lucky enough to have extra dough, sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar and bake it off as a delicious treat."
Ingredients
3 3/4 cups (485 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1-3 tablespoons sugar (omit for savory pies)
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks/339 grams) unsalted butter, frozen, cut into chunks (try to use a good quality butter)
1/2 cup (118 milliliters) water + 1/2 cup (118 milliliters) vodka, in a glass filled with ice cubes
Directions
Measure out the flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.
Using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture until it is in flat, irregular strips.
Slowly add the ice water/vodka mixture (you will not need all of it), and mix it into the flour and butter mixture (I usually work it in with clean hands). Add until the dough will hold its form when pressed together. Depending on the humidity in your kitchen, you'll probably need around half a cup. Go little by little. You want just enough liquid for it to BARELY stick to itself. If at any point, the butter starts to feel like it's warming up too much or melting, just pop everything in the freezer 5-10 minutes and take a quick break.
Press the dough as best as you can into a rectangle. It's OK if there are some crumbly bits on the edges. Cut the rectangle in thirds, stack them on top of each other and press down into a new rectangle. If there are crumbly bits still, press them in. This helps create extra layers. Repeat cutting them in thirds and stacking one more time. After the second time, all the crumbly bits should be better integrated.
Divide the dough in two, and place each half on a separate sheet of plastic wrap. Use the plastic wrap to press each half of the dough together. Wrap each half and press the dough into a disk.
Refrigerate your dough for 1 hour, or if you're in a hurry, freeze 20 minutes before using according to your recipe's instructions. Letting it sit in the fridge helps the flour hydrate and not crack when you roll it out. You can keep your well-wrapped dough in the freezer for months and use it as you would frozen store bought dough.
When using dough from frozen, I prefer to defrost it in the fridge overnight or I let it sit out at room temperature to soften slightly before rolling out. If you are a beginner, I recommend rolling out the dough between two sheets of wax paper. It allows you to easily pop the whole thing in the freezer in the middle of working with it if the dough gets too soft. You can also roll out using copious amounts of flour, and do not worry: Using a lot of flour to roll out the dough will not mess it up.
Tips
Always freeze it before baking. Whether you are blind baking or filling this dough, it benefits from 15 minutes in the freezer after shaping/filling right before baking.
If your recipe calls for an empty, baked pie crust, you need to blind bake your dough. This just means baking your crust by itself. You use blind baked crust for pies like lemon meringue or fruit tarts, when the filling does not need to be cooked in the oven.
Use a metal pie plate on top of a preheated sheet tray instead of a glass pie dish. The bottom crust immediately gets contact and conducts the heat better.
Recipe reprinted with permission courtesy of Scheck Eats.
