The Gluten-Free Homemaker

Before I was on a  gluten free diet, I found pie crusts to be intimidating.  Since then, I have considered them out of the realm of possibility for my skills.  In recent months, though, I’ve been wanting to give it a try.  I did, and I was amazed that my first attempt turned out beautifully.

For my crust, I modified this gluten free recipe.  The first time I made it I used the amount of butter this recipe calls for (1 1/2 sticks).  It worked well, and because of all the butter was a bit like shortbread.  It tasted great of course, but I tried the recipe a second time and cut the amount back to 1 stick.  It still worked great so I’m sticking with that.  I love the buttery taste, but not all the calories!  A few of these pictures are from the first crust, but it looked about the same.

Gluten-Free Pie Crust Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 c. brown rice flour
• 1/2 c. millet flour 
• 1/2 c. potato starch
• 1 Tb. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. xanthan gum
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 stick (1/2 c.) cold butter or shortening (Earth Balance sticks should work too)
• 1 large egg
• 1 Tb. ice water (maybe a little more)

Instructions
I made this crust by hand in a mixing bowl.  It should also work well in a food processor.   Combine the dry ingredients.  Add the cold butter, cut in chunks.  Use a pastry blender (you can probably get by with a fork) to cut the butter into the flour until you have pea size or smaller lumps.  Add the egg.  Beat it a little with a fork and then mix it in with everything.  Add the ice water and mix it in.  At this point, the dough does not look like it will hold together. Mine looked like this:

Use your hands to press the dough together and it will look like this:
If it is still very crumbly and will not hold together, add a little more ice water, about one teaspoon at a time.  Try pressing it together after each addition.

Place the dough on a pastry mat, silicone baking mat, wax paper or parchment paper.  I used a silicone baking mat.  The width of it was just big enough.  Place a piece of plastic wrap on top of the dough and use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 10 1/2 to 11 inch circle.  The edges will be ragged.

  At this point, it is ready to go into the pie plate, except that it has gotten too warm.  Mine was sticking to the mat.  We want the butter in the dough to stay cold, so I picked up my mat and placed it in the freezer for a few minutes.  You could also put it in the refrigerator while you work on the pie filling.

Once it is chilled, it should come off the mat pretty well.  If it breaks and cracks as you put it into the pie plate, that’s okay, pressing the cracks with your fingers will take care of it.  I flipped the mat over onto the pie plate, and then pressed the crust down into the plate.  

There should be some overhang around the edges which you can cut or break off.  I rolled out this extra and added some cinnamon and sugar, then rolled it up and baked it with the pie, but not as long.  Finish the edge of the pie how you like.  I didn’t spend much time on it because it is not as easy to work with as a gluten crust.
Now you are ready to add your filling and bake the pie.  I used this crust for a pumpkin pie, so no top was needed.  I’m not sure how well this would would work.  Trying to place strips on top would be tricky because they would break easily.  Adding a whole top might be the easiest if you could just flip it over on top of the pie filling.  Let me know if you give it a try.  I’ll probably be doing an apple pie some time this fall.
The pumpkin pie recipe will be coming up next!

Labels: dessert recipes, pies/pastry