Brown Butter Pie Crust
Elevate any pie with this Brown Butter Pie Crust! Add a nutty, sweet, and caramelized flavor to apple, pecan, or berry pies when you use this easy pie crust recipe.
Equipment
- Digital Food Scale
- 3-Quart Pot
- Stand Mixer (optional)
Ingredients
- 226 grams salted butter
- 255 grams all purpose flour
- ½ cup cold water
Instructions
- To brown the butter: Add the butter to a 3-quart pot and put over low/medium heat. Allow the butter to melt then stir while it cooks until it turns a golden brown color with small brown specs or brown bits. It may bubble up, if that happens, just remove from heat for a moment until it calms down so you can keep an eye on the color as it can happen quickly at this stage. Once the butter is browned, remove from the heat.
- Transfer the butter to a Tupperware that’s lined with parchment paper. Lining the Tupperware with parchment paper will help remove it easier once it’s cooled and I highly recommend doing this step.
- Allow the butter to chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight until it’s solid.
- Remove it from the Tupperware and weigh the butter. It should be 170 grams, but if you have more you can save that little extra for cinnamon sugar toast, waffles, or pancakes.
- Chop the 170 grams of cold butter into small cubes. Add to a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
- Add in the flour and mix on low until the mixture looks like wet sand. Immediately add in the cold water and mix just until combined. Do not over mix, you can finish mixing with your hands. If you see large pieces of butter just squish them between your fingers to combine.
- Depending on what kind of pie you are baking, you can divide the dough accordingly. If you’re making a traditional double crust, then divide the dough into two pieces, the bottom weighing 326 grams and the top 184 grams. If you’re doing two galettes or two bottom only pie crusts, then divide the dough in half equally, which is about 255 grams each. Form each piece of dough into a round disc and wrap in plastic wrap.
- Store in the fridge for at least 24 hours before rolling out, but don’t leave it longer than 48 hours. If you want to make pie dough in advance of 48 hours, then you can freeze it at this stage. Then just thaw in the fridge for up to 24 hours before rolling out.
Video
Notes
Tips
- Always weigh ingredients for the best results.
- If you are new to browning butter, check out my tutorial How to Make Brown Butter for a more in depth guide and longer video on this process.
- I use a stand mixer to make the pie crust, but you can just use a bowl and your hands. If you are using this method, you just want to squish the butter chunks and flour together with your hands until it looks like wet sand, then add in the water and mix to form a dough. If you have kitchen gloves, it really helps if you are doing this by hand.
- You can use this brown butter pie crust in place of any butter pie crust in any recipe to give it more flavor!
- This is a 2 day process, so keep that in mind. It’s best to make the brown butter, let it sit overnight to chill because we need to have chilled butter for the pie crust. Then make the pie dough, let it sit overnight to chill. Then roll out the pie. Keep this is mind if you are planning for a holiday.
- This is the perfect amount of pie dough for a 9-inch pie plate. It makes enough for a double crust. Of it makes two bottom crusts for pies like pumpkin pie where are par-baking the crust, if you only need one bottom crust, just freeze the other one for later.
- If you want to freeze this Brown Butter Pie Crust, you can do that. Just pop the plastic wrapped dough in the freezer. Thaw them for 24 hours in the fridge before you plan to roll out the pie.
- High Altitude — Follow the recipe as noted.
Nutrition
Calories: 319kcalCarbohydrates: 24gProtein: 4gFat: 23gSaturated Fat: 15gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 61mgSodium: 183mgPotassium: 41mgFiber: 1gSugar: 0.1gVitamin A: 706IUCalcium: 12mgIron: 1mg
Want more recipes?Follow along on @mimisorganiceats for more inspiration!