If you’ve been following this site for the last few years, you might know that the perfect pie crust has been somewhat of a Holy Grail for me for about as long as I’ve been keto. Well, my low carb pie & quiche crust experiments have finally ended and I feel confident that I finally found it, guys. I’ve use this crust for about half a dozen quiches so far (and one chicken pot pie) with great success. The low carb baking flour mix is the base ingredient, which contains no coconut flour, no cream cheese, wheat gluten, psyllium husk, etc., just some basic stuff most of us keto/low carb bakers already have in our pantries, and voilà! Although I can always just make a crustless quiche (which I’ve done a number of times) I sometimes miss the crust on the bottom. And as a crust snob, I think it’s very close to the real thing, but it’s low carb. Bonus, dairy-free alternative ingredients are included. Hope you enjoy!
INGREDIENTS
1 cup Low Carb Flour Mix (82 g by weight)
Pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons cold cubed butter
30 grams granulated sweetener (optional, I use Lakanto Monk Fruit blend)
1-2 teaspoons Allulose
3-6 tablespoons ice water
DIRECTIONS
Combine all dry ingredients in a food processor, leaving the top hole open, and turn it on. While the machine is blending the ingredients, add the ice water, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough starts forming a ball. You can also do this in a bowl and blend with a pastry cutter – you will want to look for the dry mix and butter/water to become pea-sized crumbles that stick together well if you pinch some into your hand and it stays together.
Scrape the dough out into your hands, rolling and smoothing it just enough until it’s neat and all together in a ball. If the dough is still too shaggy/sticky, add a dusting of oat fiber before rolling out.
Lay the dough ball onto a sheet of parchment paper, at least 12 x 12 inches. Lay another sheet of equal size on top, and roll the dough ball out into a 10″ circle pie crust.
If the crust sticks to the paper, you can leave it in the paper, place it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes. You don’t want to freeze it rock solid, but just enough to make it easier to remove from the paper and still be flexible.
Place the crust over your pie pan/dish, and gently press it in to the form of the dish/pie pan, trimming or decorating the excess bits around the edges.
Baking:
For a pie that requires a pre-baked crust:
Bake at 350 F for 8 minutes, then proceed with your recipe instructions.
For a pie that needs no pre-baking:
Follow the recipe as instructed.
Blending the flour mix with the butter using a pastry cutter
Rolling out the crust
Crust after placing & trimming/patching tears
Notes
The sweetener is optional, and you can use another type besides monk fruit, but please note that using all Allulose (and no other sweetener) may cause your crust to brown too quickly and produce a bad result, including possibly burning your crust due to the high butter to dry ingredient ratio. I found that by not using any Allulose, the crust is pale and crumbly like cake, but with just a touch of it, helps bind the other sweeteners to the dough and brown the crust a bit more.
Credit is due to Victoria’s Keto Kitchen for the pie crust inspiration.
