The Smart Trick You Need For Preparing Perfect Double-Crust Pie Dough

Making a good pie dough is a delicate balancing process, and the last thing you want to do is trip at the finish and mess up the measurements on your double-crust pie. If you're someone who makes a lot of pies you've probably inevitably come across this problem, as many recipes don't tell you how to divide your dough, or simply tell you to split your pie dough in half to make the top and bottom crusts. And then right away there are problems. You have to stretch the bottom crust too thin, or you need to steal chunks from the other half to fill in the gaps. Now you're left with a patchwork, misshapen crust. Clearly just by looking at a double-crust pie it should be obvious the divide in half thing isn't going to work. There is just way more surface area you need to cover on the bottom, which also includes the whole side of the pie. But is there actually a perfect ratio for covering that?

There is, and we know it thanks to the always precise work of the people over at King Arthur Flour. According to the King Arthur team, if you want a perfectly covered double-crust pie with equal thickness on both sides, the ratio for the bottom and top is two to one. That's to say that you should divide your pastry into thirds, with two becoming the base, and one third being rolled out for the top.

Breaking your crust into a two-third and one third section is pretty easy to do. The best way is to use a scale, where you can measure your whole crust and then just take off chunks until it's been reduced by a third. If you don't have an electric scale for baking, it's also pretty to eyeball and just lop off one-third of the dough. Then just flatten both balls out like you would with any pie crust and proceed as normal with your favorite pie recipes.

Getting the measurement on your pie dough right the first time is more than just a convenience or a way to make it look less sloppy. It will actually help make your pie come out better. Pie crust gets its ideal flaky texture when the dough is handled less. If you need to keep adjusting your dough and rolling it out, you risk overworking it. That would result in a crust that's dense and tough. There is also a risk of letting the cold butter in your pie crust melt, which can happen if you have to work longer to get your double crust measurements exactly right. But remembering such a simple ratio for dividing up your crust from the start takes almost all of the guesswork out of the equation and gets you one step closer to the perfect pie.