Coconut oil has been all the rage for quite some time amongst plant-based bloggers as a great alternative to butter or shortening. I avoided using it for quite some time for two reasons.
Firstly, it’s not readily accessible in my neck of the woods and takes a little hunting around to find. Secondly, the price.
It’s hard to justify spending any money on oil when we get all the extra-virgin olive oil we want from the family groves in western Spain. I try to use olive oil for everything and I have made a successful pie crust with olive oil for my vegan tourtiere.
I was curious as to how vegans make their pie crust in Spain so I goggled vegan pie crust in Spanish and found that most recipes here also recommend using olive oil.
A few (shockingly) used margarine and after reading through the comments many people questioned (rightly so) the ethics of using a palm oil product.
Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that supermarket margarine is vegan due to the lack of information on the provenance of the emulsifiers and added vitamins.
While a few people asked if coconut oil could replace the margarine, I was hard pressed to find an actual recipe in Spanish for coconut oil pie crust. Clearly there’s a need to be filled!
You may be wondering why on earth there’s vodka in my pie crust.
I’ve used vodka in my pie crusts ever since my mother gave me the now famous Cook’s Illustrated recipe which explained the science behind getting a super flaky crust with vodka. If you’re curious you can google it, but in a nutshell it reduces the formation of gluten and makes the dough easier to roll out, resulting in a flakier crust.
The alcohol evaporates during baking so it doesn’t have a weird taste. However, the vodka totally optional and this dough will work fine if you don’t want to add it. Just replace it with water and be careful not to overwork the dough.
A flaky and delicious vegan pie crust that can be used for both sweet and savory recipes.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups (200 grams) flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (135 grams) coconut oil, solid at room temperature *(see note below)
2 tablespoons chilled vodka (optional)
2 tablespoons cold water (or 4 tablespoons if not using vodka)
Instructions
Mix together the flour and salt and put in the fridge along with a fork or pastry cutter for 30 minutes or in the freezer for 15 minutes.
Once chilled, add one tablespoon of coconut oil and cut it into the flour until there are no large chunks. Continue adding the remaining coconut oil this way one tablespoon at a time. Your mixture should look like course meal or course sand without any large chunks of coconut oil.
Combine the vodka and the water and sprinkle one tablespoon over the dough. Gently mix to combine before adding a second tablespoon. Continue mixing and adding liquid until the dough starts to stick together and you can press it into a ball. You might not need all the liquid, or you might need more, depending what brand of flour you’re using.
To prevent the dough from sticking to the counter, I like to cover the counter with plastic wrap. Place your dough ball on the plastic wrap and knead it a couple of times to incorporate all the loose crumbs. Roll it out to the size of your pie plate then slide your hands under the plastic wrap and flip it into your pie plate. Press it down into the plate, cut off any overhang, flute the edges and prick the bottom with a fork.
You can use this pie crust as your recipe calls for - prebaked or not.
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Note: Coconut oil is solid at room temperature up to 24 C / 74 F. If your kitchen is too hot, pour the coconut oil into a ziplock bag and freeze it overnight. Use a grater to grate the frozen oil into your flour. I recommend wrapping a towel around it while you grate so that the heat from your hand doesn't melt it.
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Reader Interactions
Comments
Carolsays
do you think I could use vegan shortening instead of coconut oil? This whole recipe looks amazing!!!
Reply
Melissasays
Yes, I think that should work fine.
Reply
jessicasays
hi! what is your suggested baking temperature and duration? i'm excited to experiment with your recipe!
Reply
Melissasays
It depends on the recipe. Different fillings need different temps and times. Use this crust as your pie recipe calls for.
Reply
Deb Snydersays
WOW!!! I love it. I am so impressed. Thank you for sharing! It is my understanding that the vodka in flour recipes cancels the gluten issues some people suffer from.
Unlike water, alcohol does not contribute to the formation of gluten, the network of proteins that can cause a crust to turn leathery. Because the alcohol burns off quickly in the oven, drying out the crust, we could add enough vodka to keep the dough wet and extremely supple.
Butter creates a sturdy, crisp pie crust. For this, it is important to keep all ingredients cold which will inhibit the development of gluten in the flour. Use butter right out of the refrigerator and add ice-cold water to make the dough.
Butter pie crust has the most flavor out of the three fats. This pie crust bakes up nice and golden brown, with plenty of flaky layers. Butter pie crust is the most sturdy and will support the weight of your favorite pie fillings.
The most important step is cutting the cold fat into the flour. If you don't do this, you'll lose the flakiness, which, for me, makes pie worth every single calorie. The easiest way to do this is with a food processor. Add your flour and then your cold fat (cut up into smaller tablespoon-size chunks).
“Vodka allows you to wet the dry ingredients enough so it forms a dough that is easy to roll out and use, but has less water in it, so less gluten will form.”
"The use of vodka enables the addition of more liquid in a form that does not develop gluten, which otherwise would make the pie crust tougher," says Guy Crosby, certified Food Scientist, former science editor at America's Test Kitchen, and author of "The Science of Good Cooking" and "Cook's Science." "The alcohol in ...
Whether you use a food processor, a stand mixer, or your hands to incorporate the ingredients together, overmixing is a common mistake that leads to a chewy crust. It's tempting when baking to combine the ingredients completely, but the texture should resemble a coarse meal before adding your liquid.
The pros: Butter has the best flavor. A butter pie crust forms light, lofty, flaky layers while it bakes. The flakiness comes partially from the water content of butter, which evaporates as the pie bakes and turns to steam, separating and puffing up the layers in dough.
Before you start making the dough, fill a glass with ice and water. Add the ice water gradually to the dough, about one tablespoon or so at a time, and stop when the dough is just moist enough to hold together when a handful is squeezed.
Liquid Water, vodka, and milk or buttermilk are commonly-used liquids in pie crust, sometimes with a few teaspoons of white or cider vinegar or lemon juice. Water is the most traditional, but some people like to mix in up to 50% vodka because alcohol helps to tenderize the dough.
Partially bake a pie crust if your crust needs longer in the oven than the pie filling, such as brownie pie or quiche. And if you want an extra-crisp pie crust for your apple pie, you can partially blind bake the crust before adding the filling.
Once the dough is shaped and crimped, the last thing you want to do bake it right away. Chilling the shaped pie allows the aforementioned gluten to relax and the butter to get nice and cold again, both of which help your pie hold its shape better once it's in the oven.
Traditionally, what you're looking for in a pie crust are three basic things: you want it to be fully cooked through, without any doughiness between the filling and the bottom crust, you want the crust to be light and flaky with discernible layers, and, of course, you want there to be a rich, buttery flavor.
Vodka can be used for enhancing flavor and improving texture in many dishes. Unlike other wines and spirits, vodka offers the benefits of cooking with alcohol without changing the taste or appearance of the food as red wine or Bourbon would do, for example.
Because vodka is more volatile than water, it evaporates more quickly, which dries out the batter faster and more violently. That creates larger bubbles and even more surface area, in turn resulting in a much crispier crust.
In a vodka sauce, the vodka helps maintain a cohesive texture, allowing the creaminess to meld with the tomato base. And sure, you could use wine to the same effect, but in a sauce as rich as vodka sauce, it's better to use a small amount of alcohol that will impart as little of its own flavor as possible.
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You may be wondering why on earth there’s vodka in my pie crust.
