Sourdough Pie Crust

What is sourdough discard?

Sourdough bread has been a comforting classic for years, but this year it has become even more popular than ever. If yeast is scarce you can learn how to make bread with sourdough which has a naturally occuring yeast.

You can read our complete sourdough guide, but once you start making sourdough, you either have to bake with it or discard part of the start or it will keep growing. In order to not be wasteful, you can make recipes with the sourdough discard. These discard recipes use other leavening agents (baking powder, baking soda or yeast) to get a rise in the baked good. See below the recipe for some of our favorites.

Ingredients in Sourdough Pie Crust

• Pastry flour. Pastry flour has less protein than all-purpose flour which means it will stay more tender.
• Salt.
• Shortening. We prefer plain shortening over the artificial butter flavor shortening.
• Cold butter. Using half butter and half shortening gives you the perfect flakiness and great flavor.
• White vinegar. Adding vinegar helps to tenderize the crust and also inhibits gluten development, keeping your dough soft. You need just a bit of this and don’t worry…you won’t taste it once the pie is baked. However, if you don’t want to use it, you can use ice water instead.
• Sourdough starter. This can be sourdough discard and does not have to be bubbly and active.
• Ice water. It’s important to keep ingredients cold while mixing pie dough, so using ice water helps with this.

How to Mix Pie Dough

There are two ways that we mix pie dough:

1. Food Processor. We’ve only been mixing dough this way for about a year because frankly, I didn’t want to wash an extra appliance. However, using a food processor is really fuss free and less messy than using a bowl. So if you have a food processor, give this technique a try.
2. Pastry blender. The way we’ve made pie dough in the past is to mix it in a bowl using a pastry cutter to cut in the butter and shortening. I really do still like this method, it just takes a little more arm work to get the dough mixed.

Tips for Making Sourdough Pie Crust

• Keep the ingredients and bowl as cold as possible. If the butter and shortening are cold, they’ll melt as the pie bakes, creating flaky layers.
• Measure the flour carefully. Weighing the flour is the best bet to get the correct amount.
• Use both shortening and butter for the best flavor and texture. We tested this recipe with all butter and all shortening. Both were ok and you can totally make this dough that way if you’d like, but we liked an equal amount of each best.
• Our sourdough is 100% hydration sourdough. We say to add the water slowly to account for any difference in the type of sourdough starter you have.
• Allow the dough to rest for an hour. This allows for the sourdough flavor to develop, but also helps to chill the dough for baking.
• This recipe makes enough for a double crusted 9″ deep dish pie. If your pie plate is small, you may have dough leftover.

What to use pie dough for:

Pie crust is the basis for so many of my favorite recipes. It doesn’t matter if it is a pumpkin pie, apple pie  or even filled with potato chips (yes, you need to check that one out).  But you know what? We mostly make this pie dough for things other than savory pies or traditional pie.

• hand pies
• chicken pot pies
• cinnamon roll pie
• mason jar pies

Here’s a new one, though….I love using a cookie cutter to make pie crust cookies to dip in pudding, or a whipped cream fruit salad. So much better than using a spoon!