Gluten Free Pie Crust with Gluten Free Baking Tips

Gluten Free Pie Crust

You can make a fabulous gluten free pie crust, especially if  you follow the tips I’ve learned in my kitchen.

I love making pie dough. I make a pie at least once a week. I can walk into the kitchen and just throw down without a recipe. But let me quickly explain that it wasn’t always like that. For most of my life, I shied away from desserts, fearing biscuits, breads, and pie crust.

As a blogger, I decided I should at least give it a try, and to my great surprise, after some practice, I discovered I had a knack for desserts. Who knew? This is why I always tell people, don’t define yourself tightly. Try new things and find hidden talents.

I was making pies and biscuits successfully and then the gluten free grenade was thrown. A new challenge presented itself.

I found a gluten free flour I love working with, but even though it’s a one to one flour, recipes are not one to one transferrable. I learned that gluten free flour doesn’t absorb liquid the way wheat flour does and recipes can become greasy. I adjusted my pie crust recipe after a bit of trial and error and am very happy with the result.

I also observed that eggs made biscuits and pie crust easier to work with as their proteins work as a binder. After making several pie crusts, and serving friends, I’ve come up with a pie dough that tastes good, and has a decent texture.

Texture is the number one difference and a gluten free pie crust has to be judged on its own and not compared to a gluten crust. They will be different, but that doesn’t mean a gluten free pie crust will not be part of an amazing dessert. It will.

Gluten free pie crust is going to more resemble a short bread crust. There’s no elasticity, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be great tasting or that you won’t be able to roll it.  It will just be different and you need to be armed with a few tricks up your sleeve.

Gluten Free Baking Tips for Making Gluten Free Pie Crust

• Use a gluten free flour that tastes good. Flours made with beans or peas, etc. don’t have a flavor or texture in my opinion for a good crust. I use Bob’s Red Mill One to One for all my gluten free baking.
• Freeze the butter. Freeze the flour. Ideally, the butter should remain in small pieces inside the flour. This isn’t as easy to do with a gluten free flour, and butter or fat tends to disappear. Freezing helps with this.
• Use real unsalted butter, but not as much per cup as with all-purpose flour.
• Use a food processor. Pulse butter for ten seconds on low.
• Use eggs as a binder.
• Rest pie dough before rolling out in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
• Roll between parchment paper.
• If dough becomes too warm, wrap in plastic, place dough into freezer for a few minutes.
• If using cut outs for the top or for lattice topping, roll out, refrigerate for about ten minutes before cutting.

Here are some of the Gluten Free Pies using Gluten Free Pie Dough from Spinach Tiger.

Gluten Free Apple Pandowdy

Gluten Free Blueberry Mascarpone Tart 

Gluten Free Pumpkin Hand Pies with Gluten Free Pie Crust

Gluten Free Hand Pies in Muffin Pan

Gluten Free Tart Crust

Gluten Free Biscuits with Video

The gluten free biscuit recipe is one of my most popular and positively reviewed posts.

Gluten Free Pie Crust and 10 Gluten Free Baking Tips with Video

 

Author:

Angela Roberts

Recipe type: Gluten Free Baking

Cuisine: American

Serves: 8

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Print

 

This is my recipe for gluten free pie dough, more than enough for pan dowdy or double crusted pie dough.

Ingredients

Gluten Free Pie Dough Ingredients

• 2½ cups Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour (order here).
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter (order here)
• 1 tablespoon organic pure cane sugar (order here)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 4 to 6 tablespoons ice cold water

Instructions

Gluten Free Pie Crust Instructions

1. Cut butter into small pieces, freeze for 15 minutes.
2. Place flour, salt, sugar in food processor.
3. Mix well.
4. Add in butter. Mix just until the butter is in pea sized pieces.
5. Add eggs. Mix for about 5 seconds until eggs are incorporated.
6. Add just enough iced cold water to bring together. Pulse in food processor. You will see dough form.
7. Dough will be like a short bread dough, because there is no elastic.
8. Pour into a plastic bag. Seal.
9. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before using.

3.5.3208

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