For years, the elusive perfect pie crust felt like my personal culinary Everest. Recipe after recipe led to slumps, crumbles during transfer, or crusts that were disappointingly flat and dense. I explored every trick in the book, even resorting to store-bought dough – a humbling experience for a food writer. Tart shells became my go-to, and I’d often declare a preference for cobblers, anything to avoid pie crust. But deep down, I knew there was no true substitute for a golden, flaky, buttery pie crust, especially when the holidays rolled around. Then, “Milk Street Bakes,” arrived, and I knew it was finally time to conquer my pie pastry nemesis using Kimball’s Milk Street recipes.
Truthfully, the transformation was surprisingly simple. Following two Kimball’s Milk Street recipes – Single-Crust Pie Dough and Flaky Pie Pastry – brought immediate success. Both doughs came together effortlessly in my food processor, were easy to handle and roll out, and baked beautifully, achieving that sought-after flakiness without shrinking during blind baking.
The secret? It wasn’t sudden pastry expertise on my part. My success is entirely thanks to these two exceptional Kimball’s Milk Street recipes and the innovative ingredients and techniques they employ.
Chris Kimball’s Single-Crust Pie Dough: A Game Changer for All Bakers
Image: Close-up of perfectly rolled out single-crust pie dough, showcasing its smooth texture and readiness for baking, highlighting the ease of using Kimball’s Milk Street pie dough recipes.
Neither Kimball’s Milk Street recipe is overly complicated – after all, even I managed to make them flawlessly on my first try. However, the Single-Crust Pie Dough recipe includes two ingenious ingredients that act like training wheels, ensuring success for bakers of every level. Even experienced home cooks will appreciate the reliability and ease of this dough.
Chris Kimball, after decades of pie baking experience, still sought a pie dough that could withstand blind baking without issue. Traditional doughs often presented a frustrating dilemma: either they were dry and difficult to roll (but less prone to shrinking), or they rolled out easily but slumped dramatically during pre-baking. Instead of endlessly tweaking fat ratios, flour types, or adding unconventional ingredients like vinegar or vodka, Chris challenged baking expert Erika Bruce to “make a better pie crust.”
Erika rose to the challenge. The breakthrough was inspired by an unexpected source: Japanese Milk Bread. This famously soft bread achieves its texture through the tangzhong method. This technique involves cooking a small portion of the flour with boiling water to create a paste. This paste is then incorporated into the rest of the dough. The science behind it? The starch granules in the flour absorb and trap the water, adding moisture without promoting gluten development. Once the water is bound within the starch, it can’t contribute to toughness.
Initially, a simple water and flour paste was tested, but the resulting crust was too firm and not flaky enough. The solution came from another gluten-free pantry staple: cornstarch. A cornstarch and water paste, briefly microwaved to form a gel, proved to be the answer. After chilling the gel, all ingredients were combined in a food processor and pulsed into a dough. The cornstarch trapped the water, allowing for increased moisture without gluten activation. This resulted in a tender, relaxed dough that rolled out effortlessly and resisted shrinking during blind baking. A touch of sour cream, containing glutathione (a peptide that weakens gluten), further enhanced the dough’s suppleness and minimized shrinkage.
Having baked this pie crust myself (and paired it with the delectable Maple Browned Butter Pie filling), I can confirm its promises are true. It’s incredibly easy to mix, rolls out beautifully, handles and transfers smoothly, achieves excellent flakiness, and holds its shape perfectly during blind baking. You can even watch Chris Kimball demonstrate the recipe on Milk Street TV.
But curiosity lingered: what if I removed the cornstarch “training wheels” and relied solely on butter for flakiness?
Flaky Pie Pastry: All-Butter Crust, All-Around Success with Kimball’s Method
Image: A baker expertly rolling out flaky pie pastry, showcasing the dough’s pliability and the technique for achieving a perfect circle, emphasizing the user-friendliness of Kimball’s Milk Street pastry recipes.
The Kimball’s Milk Street recipe for Flaky Pie Pastry takes a different approach. It contains no cornstarch, sour cream, shortening, vodka, or vinegar – only butter, flour, ice water, and a touch of sugar and salt for flavor. Its distinction from other classic all-butter pie crusts lies in the unique method and timing of butter incorporation.
Incorporating butter into flour serves two crucial purposes: it coats the flour particles with fat, inhibiting moisture absorption and gluten development, and it distributes small pieces of butter throughout the dough. As these butter pieces melt during baking, they create pockets of steam, resulting in the signature flaky layers of an all-butter pie crust.
This step has historically been my pie-baking downfall, and where many pie doughs go wrong. Large butter pieces are essential for flakiness, but they can make the dough difficult to roll, leading to stiff, crumbly sections interspersed with rapidly warming butter that sticks to the rolling pin. Conversely, fully incorporating the butter yields a supple, easy-to-roll dough that lacks flakiness.
Kimball’s Milk Street recipes masterfully navigate this challenge with a two-stage butter incorporation technique. First, about a third of the butter is processed with the dry ingredients until fully combined – the flour should change color. Then, the remaining butter is pulsed in until reduced to pea-sized pieces. This ensures sufficient fat integration for workability and tenderness, preventing excessive moisture absorption when ice water is added, while the larger butter pieces generate those desirable flaky layers in the baked crust.
Image: Close-up view of pie dough being cut and stacked, demonstrating the layering technique used in Kimball’s Milk Street flaky pie pastry recipe to enhance flakiness, highlighting the recipe’s attention to detail.
For optimal results, ensure your butter is thoroughly chilled and cut into tablespoon-sized chunks before adding it to the flour. The food processor efficiently handles the butter, and cutting it into smaller pieces beforehand could lead to overworking the dough.
Image: Finished pie dough disc wrapped in plastic wrap, ready for chilling, emphasizing the final step in preparing Kimball’s Milk Street pie crust and the anticipation of baking a perfect pie.
Once the dough forms, it’s shaped into a rectangle, divided into thirds, and stacked. This stacking and pressing technique further builds layers for even greater flakiness. A metal bench scraper is useful for handling the dough, but a wide metal spatula works as well. Round the corners by wrapping the dough in plastic and rolling it on its side to form a disc. Chill for at least an hour to allow the butter to firm up and the gluten to relax before rolling.
Rolling to Perfection: Milk Street’s Expert Dough Handling Tips
Pies are traditionally round, and rolling your dough with this in mind simplifies the process. Instead of using straight, linear rolling motions that create a rectangular shape, roll in an arc. Begin by gently tapping the dough disc with your rolling pin to soften the butter without warming it excessively.
Imagine your dough disc as a clock face and your rolling pin as the hand. Roll from the 12 o’clock position down to 3 o’clock in an arc. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and repeat. This technique keeps pressure off the dough’s center, preventing overworking, and ensures a consistently circular shape.
Finally, keep your work surface well-floured to prevent sticking. Sticking can promote gluten development, the enemy of a flaky crust. With these Kimball’s Milk Street recipes and techniques, perfect pie crust is finally within reach.
