Make The Perfect Apple Pie Crust With 3 Expert Tips

Apple pie deserves a perfect crust. You want it to be light and flaky with a buttery flavor. This can be hard to accomplish, so we spoke with Meghan Brophy, the executive pastry chef at Pastis Miami, to get her advice on how to achieve the perfect apple pie crust just in time for the holidays. She gave us three tips, starting with advice on the crust ingredients themselves.

"The best crust for apple pie would be made with a combination of butter and lard. Butter will provide color and flavor, while the addition of lard will result in a more tender and flaky crust than when using butter alone," Brophy tells us.

There's a reason lard has become more popular recently for pie crusts, and it has to do with the larger fat crystals in it that melt, leaving pockets that create the flaky texture we all love. It's important to use the taste-neutral leaf lard so it doesn't impose a savory, meaty taste to your pie crust that counters the rich flavor the addition of the butter brings to the mix. Once you get the lard and butter mixed right, though, Brophy has two more tips you'll need to keep in mind.

The last thing you want once you've perfected the flaky, buttery crust is for it to get soggy and negate all that hard work. The second tip Meghan Brophy has is to par-bake the crust. If you bake the crust first with parchment paper and pie weights in place of filling, it seals the crust from the moisture of the apples. This is why you should always par-bake your crust!

The third tip, and the other key to keeping your crust from getting soggy, is to choose the right apples. "Choosing apples that will hold their shape and release less moisture such as granny smith or honey crisp will help ensure the crust stays crispy as well," says Brophy. Then, once you have the right apples, she recommends you precook the filling with a thickener like cornstarch or flour. Brophy tells us that doing this "will help ensure that the crust and the filling will both be finished baking in the same amount of time." Try adding a little boiled apple cider to that pie filling to really bring the intense apple flavor!

If you follow these three tips, don't be surprised if people ask you where you bought your pie crust next time you serve homemade apple pie. Whether or not you let them in on these handy tricks you used is up to you!