Remember Marie Calendar Pot Pie’s? Thats what this crust tastes exactly like
There are a few things you should know before beginning the recipe. I need you to forget all that you know about making crust. For the pastry chef’s out there.. this Flaky Pie crust does not require chilling, docking and all the other fancy techniques normally involved. This recipe is simple- keep it that way and you will have fantastic results. Using the exact flours that I have called for is key.
* Please note that Sweet Rice flour is different than rice flour. It can be found at most grocery stores. I purchase mine from a local Asian Grocery store. There is labeled as “glutinous rice flour”. Despite its confusing title- it is 100% Gluten Free. Also note- that using brown rice vs. white in the recipe will result in a better golden brown color once baked.
If you are sensitive to corn- Try spectrum’s butter flavored Shortening! It works great and will give more flavor than the unflavored shortening. Also, to avoid corn opt for Guar Gum instead of xanthan.
I make this crust in my food processor- you may also make it by hand, though it may need some extra kneading. Usually with butter crusts you have to be careful not to overwork the dough, as you will lose the flakiness. That is not the case with this recipe- it can be heavily worked and still yield gorgeous and delicious flakes. In fact I prefer to overwork it as this makes it easy to transport onto the pie plate.
Flaky Pie Crust
1 ½ Cup Sweet Rice Flour
¾ Cup Brown or White Rice Flour
¼ Cup + 1 TBS Potato Starch
1 Tsp Salt
¼ Tsp Xanthan or Guar Gum
14 TBS (1 ¾ Stick) Earth Balance Butter OR Shortening or Bacon Lard.
(at room temp. Butter and Bacon Lard will yeild a more flavorful crust)
2 Large Eggs (Cold or at room temp.)
¼ Cup cold water.
Egg Wash: 1 Egg + 1 TBS water whisked together.
- Combine all the dry ingredients (Sweet Rice Flour, Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Salt and Xanthan Gum.) in the bowl of a food processor.
- Add the room temperature butter. Cut in by pulsing the machine until the butter is cut into small pea sized pieces.
- Adds Eggs and Water. Process until it becomes thick dough. * Dough should be soft and easy to work with- if needed add up to 1 additional TBS of cold water. (The amount of water will range depending on the brand of flour that you select).
- Roll dough out on a sheet of parchment paper topping both the top and bottom with additional Sweet Rice Flour as needed to prevent stick.
- Roll the parchment onto itself (like you would cinnamon roll dough) and then unroll into the pie plate.
- Brush with Egg wash.
- Bake at 375 degrees 25-30 minutes until slightly golden.
Yields 2 Crust’s (Enough to make the top and bottom of 1 pie) Crust can be filled with any filling prior to baking. Or Pre-baked before filling.
* Be sure to roll out and place the dough into the pan promptly after making it. As it sits it will begin to dry out and become hard to work with. Keep dough covered. If dough begins to dry out knead in a little extra water a tsp. at a time.
*Today I am going to request that no one asks me for alterations. This crust needs the 2 eggs, and it needs the flours I have suggested. Changing any of these things will give you results that I can’t assure will be any good. *
I’m working on a grain free crust for the holidays as well which I will be posting soon. Hopefully.. I’ll manage to cover everyone’s needs. * If you can have grains but need to avoid eggs check out some of my other pie crust recipes. They are not nearly as flaky- BUT they are also incredibly easy to work with and delish!
Gluten Free/ Vegan Basic Pie Crust
Gluten Free/Vegan Hazelnut Pie Crust
Oatmeal and Sweet Rice Pie Crust
Remember that all the Go Ahead Honey Submissions are due to me by Nov. 19th! (For more details on this read here)
Happy Holiday Season!
xo,
Brittany
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*All recipes and text on this site are the original creations and property of Brittany Angell. If you make a recipe from this website and would like to share it, this may be done by sharing photo’s and including a direct link to this website. Duplication of recipe text, or “adaptions” containing less than 4 major changes to the recipe is strictly forbidden *
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks terrific, Brittany, and I can see why it is important not to substitute flours. I do however have 2 questions: you say “butter” sever a times but seem to specify a non-butter. Have you done the crust with plain unsalted butter? and… I’m not quite getting the mechanics about the parchment paper. Do you put the crust into the pan parchment down, bake, and remove the parchment, or transfer parchment up and peel the paper away? Thanks for clarifying, and I’m psyched to try this.
Regular Butter will work fantastic! And the parchment is only used to roll the crust out on and to help with the transfer to the pan if needed. Its not needed for baking! -Brittany.
I tested this recipe earlier in the week. It’s AMAZING and not just for Gluten Free. The hardest thing about it was, as Brittany says, no freezing, refrigerating, docking, etc… I kept checking the recipe over and over again. It made a crust for one deep dish pie with a raised, shaped edge plus I had enough left over that I reworked it for an individual pie as well. Reworked it, fluted edge and straight into the oven. It baked without falling, slumping, buckling. I think it should be renamed Galactic Pie Crust because I think an alien slipped Brittany the secret in one of her dreams.
Brittany, I’ll be more than happy to test the egg free, grain free version so I can have some too. Of course, my husband may not be so happy at having to share.
Laurel you are SO sweet to share this on here! Thanks so much!!! xoxox
I made this crust last night for pumpkin pie. The dough was so easy to work with and the results were incredible. I was able to make 2 pies with the recipe and I was going to freeze one of them, but my gluten eating family has inhaled one pie already! Lots of compliments on how good the crust was. No more store bought GF pie crusts for me – this is the perfect pie crust! Thank you for sharing it.
So glad you enjoyed it!!
Brittany, I’ll be making this for Thanksgiving – is it necessary to use a food processor or could this be done by hand? Thanks!
Nope! You can make it by hand too Just made sure to work the dough enough that it holds together nicely! Hope you like it!
I did something wrong – my crust was very oily. I thought I had measured everything exactly right… I used shortening instead of Earth Balance Sticks. Should I have reduced the amount maybe? I made little hand held apple pies in a grill like contraption that has the plates for “pie pockets”. They taste good but the crust is not super flaky. I will definitely try again as I feel that I did something in error – Any suggestions would be great! Oh, and I used brown rice flour not white and the potato starch and sweet rice flour.
What size were your eggs?? I used large. If you used anything smaller it’s possible this crust could become greasy as they eggs are what balance out the fat ratio. The earth balance butter and shortening should work exactly the same. Sorry this happened.
I made this for a thanksgiving pumpkin pie, with no previous pie making experience at all, and it was amazing! I think I needed a little more water than I put into the crust because it cracked a bit as I was trying to put it in the pie dish, but they were easily repaired and it cooked into a beautiful tasty crust. I also used real butter instead of earth balance. My gluten eating friends couldn’t tell the difference and thanked me for making a great pie!
This was the easiest gluten free pie crust I have ever tried. So easy to roll!! Thank you for sharing it with us!!
Thank you SO much for posting this recipe!!! I am “known” for my pies and since going gluten free I felt selfish changing them just so I could have a piece too….especially since people always told me my crust was their favorite. But yours looked so good I decided to go for it anyways and I made my cherry pie with your crust for mother’s day. I was pretty nervous how everyone would take it, but we all LOVED it and ate the entire pie at one sitting! I am so relieved that I have your recipe and can still make my pies! I am sending this recipe along to my mom along with a package of all the flours needed. Thanks again!
this looks really good but I can’t handle grain very well..For the rest of my family I might make this as a treat and maybe just have a bite! I cant wait to see how your grain free recipe turns out!
I was wondering if we need to bake the crust before we add the filling or do we just dump in the filling on the raw pie crust and then bake it??? PS I am super excited about it!
haha nevermind! I just saw that part! Thanks again for the recipe!
A friend shared this on Facebook, and it looks great! I have one question. My mom makes the most perfect glutenous pie crusts. Her recipe calls for mostly shortening with just a bit of butter. Do you think it would work for me to mix the shortening/butter in this recipe, provided I use 14 tbsp. total?? Thanks!
Sure! That should totally work!
Let me know how it turns out.
Did you know that one of the ingredients of Earth Balance is “Natural flavor (plant derived from corn…)” Just pointing this out as you cook corn-free. I wonder if someone with a sensitivty to corn would be harmed by it.
(Your crust looks delicious! Can’t believe it’s wheat free.)
Yep! Knew this. Thankfully I’m not allergic to corn and I do ok with earth balance!
Wow!!!! This looks amazing and super easy!!!! Everyone always liked my pies before going gluten free, but most of the gluten free pie crust recipes I have come across seem so delicate/picky and a challenge to work with. This sounds delicious!!! I haven’t been able to find any sweet rice flour in any of the stores in my area, so I won’t be able to use this recipe for Thanksgiving, but I will have to keep my eyes out for it, maybe I can find some so that we can have a yummy pie for Christmas. I also loved your home-made poptart idea with the leftover cranberry sauce in your crust. That really sounds delicious!!!!
Thank you for all of your work, and your willingness to share your discoveries with the rest of us!! You are so talented! You make a new world of food allergies a lot easier to deal with because you have so many yummy creations!! I am going to try making your flax tortillas for dinner tonight!!
You are So welcome! This is one of my all time recipes makes killer pie.
Happy Thanksgiving by the way
I’d like to thank you for the recipe. I have done many hours of work on gluten-free recipes for my family myself, and pie crust has always eluded me. This turned out beautiful, had good flavor and flakiness, but I have a couple of questions. How wet is this dough, typically? And does anyone else have trouble with the dough falling apart when you try to get it from the table to the pie pan? Is that an indication of it being too wet or too dry?
Hmmm.. it should not be falling apart. I think that would indicate that your dough was too dry. Did you use the gram measurements? That can make a BIG difference (or did you make any changes to the recipe?)
I’ve recently gone gluten free for health reason (I don’t have Celiac, I’m actually ALLERGIC to gluten…) and it’s not been easy for me. I’ve been cooking and baking for well over 3/4′s of my life, so I’ve found baking to be very intimidating. What I don’t understand about most GF recipes that typically don’t require eggs in the “traditional” recipe is why they need eggs in the GF “version”.
A “traditional” pate brisee recipe is flour, ice cold solid fat (ie butter/lard/shortening on their own or in combination), ice water, salt…
Why do the GF pie crust recipes require egg? Is it to act as an emulsifier? Isn’t the xanthan gum an emulsifier?
In the case of this crust it makes it flakey. Without the eggs it’s gummy and does not cook through properly. Wheat flour can handle fat much better than the gf flours and I found the egg was the golden ticket in making this recipe perfect!
I’ve worked a lot with gf high fat recipes – another example I can give is Nilla Wafers. I tried over and over to make my recipe egg free but no matter what I did they were a gummy mess. Then when I added 1 egg they became the perfect crisp texture. Eggs somehow play a big role in making the fat do what it’s supposed to do! ( wheat for whatever reason doesn’t need that extra help from the egg).
Think of mayo- the eggs suspend the fat- I think they do the same thing in gf baking.
I must make this amazing-looking crust…Question…Can I sub chia or flax for the xanthan gum?..It seems as if I’ve seen this “done” with gf crusts…but not sure if it would work to satisfaction?…Thank you for all you offer!
Hm. I wouldn’t. This recipe is very particular. When I developed it, it didn’t like changes- everything had to be ” just so”. Of course though- feel free to experiment. You never know what could happen
Hi Brittany,
I just wanted to post it on here for anyone else who might be short on ingredients. I was out of white and brown rice flour, potato starch and didn’t have sweet white rice flour. I used 3/4 cup of Tom Sawyer flour (which is a blend of flours) in place of the brown or white rice flour and sweet white sorghum flour in place of the sweet rice flour. I also subbed tapioca starch in place of the potato starch and used regular butter for the fat. I don’t have a food processor so I mixed in my stand mixer with a dough hook on. It was pretty wet once I had everything together but I slowly added just enough sorghum flour to get it to hold together. I rolled it out and it stayed together very well. It baked very nice and has a great flavor and texture. ) Hope that helps anyone else looking for a way to make this crust. It’s the best one we’ve had so far!
I’m new to GF baking. Do you need to sift the flours prior to measuring like you do with wheat flour?
I never leave comments, but let me say this: This pie crust recipe is DA BOMB!!! And if you overbake it (like I did once) it takes on the texture of a shortbread. I used these to make Jamaican beef patties, apple pie, and pop tarts for me and the kids. It really does flake up! Delish.
I was wondering if this would work to replace toaster strudels? I saw you made pop tarts out of it so is it not a flaky crust? Thanks!
I really want to try this but wonder if you could clarify the “room temperature butter” and “cutting in”, I have been making pies for years and have never used room temperature butter. It is always cold. Cutting in wouldn’t be possible with room temperature butter. Please advise, thanks!
Earth balance which is what I typically use is too hard out of the fridge.
So I find it works better at room temp.
If you prefer to use cold real butter that will work. This recipe is very flexible.
Can you freeze this crust for a day (in the pie pan) before filling it?
Haven’t tried! But I suspect that should work.