Gluten Free Pie Crust Recipe and Tricks

Pie crust – not easy to make well at the best of times, and add in the challenges of gluten free cooking, and most wheat avoiders might think their pie baking days were over.

But it can be done! And in fact, it's not even all that hard…if you know the tricks.

Here's how you do it. It's been tried, tested and tested again, and it is good. Not exactly the same as a flakey gluten pie crust, but probably just as good in a different sort of way.

Gluten Free Pastry Crust (for 1 double crust pie) (For sweet fruit pies)

• 1/1/2 cups of gluten free flour mix (my mix is 2 parts white rice flour, 2/3 of a part potato starch, 1/3 of a part tapioca flour)
• ½ cup of sugar
• ½ cup of cold butter cut into cubes
• 1 tsp of xanthan gum
• 1/3 cup of cornstarch
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 large egg (beaten)
• 2 large sheets of parchment paper

Mix all dry ingredients

Cut in the butter using a pastry cutter or two knives until the mixture has a course consistency, (pea sized lumps).

Add in the egg and vanilla, and then use your hands to mix it all into a dough (the warmth of your hands will help it all to adhere). Work it as minimally as possible. Once it forms a ball, stop playing around. (If it won't cohere into a dough, add a scant drizzle of water, and try again).

Wrap it in plastic and refrigerate until needed. If you want to use it right away, a 15 minute refrigeration will help.

Because the dough is more delicate than a normal pie dough, the parchment paper will help a lot.

Lightly flour a big sheet of parchment paper already laid out on the counter.

Take half of the dough and lay it between the 2 sheets of parchment paper, and roll on the outside of the top of the parchment paper. Check periodically as you roll, to ensure that the dough is not getting stuck to the paper. Add a bit more flour to keep things loose and moving if necessary.

Keep rolling until it's big enough for your pie pan.

Take off the top sheet of parchment paper, and holding it all under the bottom sheet, gently flip the crust into the pie pan. If you're lucky it will invert perfectly, but if you get a tear, don’t worry and piece it back together with your hands.

Egg wash the bottom, and add your fruit filling. Repeat the parchment rolling with the second half of the dough and plop it on top, crimping to seal.

Bake as you would for any normal pie.

That's it. The parchment paper rolling makes it pretty easy, and although this crust won’t be quite as flakey as the best conventional crust, it is very very good (kind of shortbread like), and well worth making.