The Zesty Ingredient You Need For The Most Tender Pie Crust Ever

Traditional pie dough recipes are as basic as it gets: flour, fat, salt, and water. If you want the tenderest, flakiest pie crust you've ever made, though, you'll want to add one more ingredient. Surprisingly, it's one that's normally reserved for the inside of the pie.

The idea is to substitute lemon juice for a teaspoon of the water you add to your crust. The acid in the juice will keep gluten from forming, so the pastry will stay soft and tender instead of getting tough and chewy. It may also add a little zinginess to the flavor, which is a nice complement to many fruit pies.

Since the amount of liquid you add to pie dough can vary according to the humidity in the air and the moisture content of your flour, it's best to incorporate the lemon juice right after you blend the butter into the flour. Then you can add as little or as much water as you need to help the dough come together, keeping it nice and cold so the butter won't melt before you bake.

Lemon juice makes an easy swap because it's probably already in your fridge. However, it's not the only ingredient that works this way. In the past, we've recommended making a pie crust with apple cider vinegar (another acid) or replacing the water with vodka, which, though it's not acidic, does not react with flour and fat to activate gluten as water does. 

Whatever liquid you choose, you can also try switching out other ingredients to take your pie crust to the next level. For example, you could replace some butter with lard for a richer taste (though skip this one if you're serving to plant-based eaters). Or, focus on the flour, choosing pastry flour in place of the all-purpose variety to reduce gluten, or blending in some whole-wheat flour to create a more rustic crust. Depending on what's inside the pie, you can also flavor the crust with herbs and spices. Once you start experimenting, you'll see how much room the basic pastry recipe has for the creative cook.