How To Make Gluten-free Pie Crust

Pies make for an excellent dessert, and an excellent main meal depending on the inner ingredients too.

They are delicious, look amazing on the table, and are relatively easy to make. But what if you need a gluten-free option? Is that possible? 

It is more than possible. Just choose the right ingredients to fill the pie with, and make sure that the crust is gluten-free.

In fact, you can easily make a gluten-free pie crust yourself, if that is what your dietary needs request, or if you simply want to experiment with a new recipe for your pie creation. 

There are, of course, many different recipes you can follow and many ways in which to make a gluten-free pie crust.

After all, the art of cooking is an entire universe of possibilities, methods, and combinations.

But we will share our favorite recipe for making a gluten-free pie crust, which is pretty easy to follow and should provide you with a yummy result. 

Let’s get right into it! 

Making Gluten-free Pie Crust

As we have already mentioned, there are many different ways in which you can make a gluten-free crust, as the world is full of different recipes and variations.

So feel free to browse for other alternatives or methods!

Nevertheless, this is our favorite recipe that we absolutely recommend you try out, as it is simple to follow, and the result is absolutely delicious. 

You Will Need

These are all of the ingredients you will need in order to make a gluten-free pie crust. 

• Cup 4 Cup gluten free flour (if you don’t need the pie crust to be gluten free you can follow this very same recipe and replace this ingredient with normal all-purpose flour!)
• Fine sea salt
• Sugar (this is more of an optional ingredient, but it makes the pie crust all the tastier, especially if it is brown sugar)
• Butter (we recommend using a European style butter, as they tend to have a higher fat content and are therefore better for making the dough with more ease)
• Apple cider vinegar 

Step-By-Step Instructions

Once you have all of the ingredients necessary, it’s time to finally get to the cooking part, and make your gluten-free pie crust. Here is how to do it, step by step. Just follow the instructions!

1. To begin, take the butter and cut it into small pieces. Ideally, these pieces should be around half an inch in size. Once cut, you should put all of these butter pieces into the fridge. (It is really important that the butter is cold for this recipe to work out and for the pie crust to turn out perfect!) 
2. In a bowl, pour in the flour, the salt, and the sugar. Then, mix them thoroughly so that they are combined. You can do this the traditional way, by mixing them together with a whisk, or you could go for a more modern method and use a food processor, which will combine them a lot faster and with no effort required. 
3. Next, take the cube pieces of butter that you have left to cool in the fridge, and put them in the bowl with the mixture of flour, sugar, and salt. Mix the butter in, until you are left with a crumbly paste full of small chunks of butter. (Make sure you do not overmix the butter into the flour, as you want there to be small chunks of butter left. This is what will make the pie crust nice and flaky, for the best possible result.)
4. The next step is to take the apple cider vinegar, and to drizzle a bit of it into the mixture. (Adding the apple cider vinegar will help ensure the pie crust is flaky, for the best possible result!) You can also drizzle in cold water to make sure that dough sticks together when you pinch it, so that it looks floury and sticky. 
5. Sprinkle some flour onto a work surface on the table, and place the mixture of dough on top of it. Then, you will have to shape the dough into a ball, using your hands. Once you have a ball of dough, divide it into two halves, and then press these down into two disks. 
6. Cover the two disks of dough with a plastic wrap, and place them in the fridge. They should be left to chill there for around 30 minutes. 

And that’s it, that’s the gluten-free pie crust dough done! You can then keep it in the refrigerator for up to two days. Or alternatively, you could keep it in the freezer for up to three months!

When you are ready to make a full pie, take the pie crust dough that you have prepared, and use it in the recipe as normal. It should be simple to use, and it will be delicious once fully cooked! 

As a general rule, this pre-prepared dough should be enough for making a nine-inch double crust pie. 

Extra Tips For Making The Gluten-free Pie Crust

If you’ve never made a gluten-free pie crust before, or you simply want to perfect your recipe and method, here are some extra tips that might come in handy! 

• You can place parchment paper on the working surface, when you are rolling and shaping the dough, to avoid it sticking to the table. 
• You can brush the dough of the pie crust with egg before baking, in order to get an extra delicious browned result. 
• A lot of professionals like to use a glass pie plate when baking the crust, so that they can see the bottom of it and ensure it is ready before removing it from the oven.

Summary

In conclusion, making a gluten-free pie crust is just as easy as making a normal pie crust, with the main difference being that you need to use gluten-free flour instead of normal all-purpose flour.

There are many ways in which you can make the pie crust, and many different ingredients you can add in order to experiment with the results.

Just give it a go and try it out as many times as you need, until you get the perfect pie!