Why you should make pie crust in a mixer

“Grandma's Way” is a beautiful salute to the tradition of baking. But it shouldn't dictate how we bake at 21^str century. Today there is a modern alternative to beating butter with a wooden spoon, beating buckram with a wire whisk, mix in cold butter pieces by hand croissant – and doing pie crust.

It's called a stand mixer.

I bought my first stand mixer (with Green Stamps!) over 40 years ago, and quickly discovered that it is just as good for making pie crust as it is for any other baking task (see how it's done). My mixer pie crust is smooth, soft and delicious, equal to any handmade crust. And almost as important as the end result is the process: It's faster, more convenient, and maybe even more effective to make pie crust in my stand mixer than by hand.

And I'm not alone when it comes to enjoying the benefits of a stand mixer: Pastry chef Nicole Rucker uses her stand mixer to make an amazing mix. vegan pie dough.

Here's why you'll want to try mixer pie crust:

The cake stays colder. You may have heard that people with cold hands make the best dessert. While this is probably more fiction than fact, it has a grain of truth: You want to keep the butter in your batter as cold as possible while you combine it with the flour. Why? Because it's the tiny bits of butter intact in the dough that translate into pockets of steam as the crust bakes, giving the melt.

A person's hand holding partially mixed pie crust, showing pieces of butter in the flour. — Warm hands are not the best way to keep ingredients fresh while making pie crust; choose a mixer instead.

A lot of hands-on dough work will warm up the dough faster than the cold metal beater and metal or glass bowl of your stand mixer—even given the slight amount of heat-producing friction the stand mixer creates while it's running.

You will get consistent results. Our hands are great at many (many!) things, but durability isn't always one of them. As a pie baker, you can create a crust with every little piece of butter perfectly flattened and distributed absolutely evenly in the flour. Next time you make crusts: not so much.

But your stand mixer? Slap on the beater and put it on speed 2 and it will run exactly the same as it did yesterday or last week or last year. His job is to mix things up quickly, thoroughly, and consistently – all of which make for a better pie crust.

A triple batch of our Classic Double Pie Crust recipe fits easily in the bowl of a 7-quart stand mixer. — Capacity! A large triple batch of our Classic Double Pie Crust recipe fills less than half the bowl of a 7-quart stand mixer and should easily fit in most stand mixers.

Large herds are a breeze. It's Thanksgiving Day. You're making two apple, one pumpkin, and one pecan pies, so you need a triple-double: three double pie crust recipes. That means either making three batches of pie dough in a row, or a giant batch that requires working a pound of cold butter into the flour with your fingers or a pastry cutter. Instead — relax and let the mixer do its magic.

The pie crust before adding the liquid showing the equal crumbliness of the handmade and mixer-made crust. — Whether you work the butter into the flour by hand or using a stand mixer, you should get very similar results. The change? The mixer is more time efficient and durable.

You will save time. Even if you are really good and fast with your hands or pastry tool, it still takes time to process the fat in the flour. If you use a stand mixer, you can do several tasks: While the stand mixer is combining the flour and shortening (if your recipe calls for shortening), cut the butter into chunks. While the mixer is working on the butter, go prepare your ice water. You will always be one step ahead when using a mixer.

Cleaning is easier. If you use grinding (smear) method, or even if you just dump the finished dough on a work surface to give it some last dough, you are left with a ceiling or silicone mat to clean A mixer, meanwhile, completes the entire task in its own bowl, reducing cleanup.

Pie crust wrapped in a mat, pictured with a rolling pin and iPad tablet. — Tablets are useful for reading recipes. Keep your fingers clean from slipping when making pie crust with a stand mixer.

Fingers do not stick. If you're reading a recipe from your phone or tablet and need to tap or swipe the screen, doughy fingers are a constant hindrance. It's easy to keep your hands clean when you let your mixer do the work.

Are you physically challenged?

Some of us don't have the dexterity and energy to make pie crusts by hand. As an older boomer, I don't have the physical stamina I once had and have to ration my energy. Also, my hands don't work like they used to. Making pie crust by hand—mixing flour and shortening until it's sandy, cold butter being painstakingly “worked” into the mixture with my fingers or a pastry cutter—is harder than it used to be.

Using a pastry blender to mix the shortening into the flour for the pie crust. — Even with the help of a pastry blender, hard chunks of cold butter can be difficult to work with in flour. A stand mixer makes the process easy.

The same issues can exist for people with chronic fatigue or hand pain. If you have any kind of physical challenge involving your hands, arms, or energy level, your stand mixer is an absolute godsend for making pie crust.

And we understand that it's not just the pie crust that can be difficult. Physical issues can be discouraging, but hopefully they won't stop you from baking altogether! For more useful information, see Burning with chronic fatigueAND Tips for baking with arthritis and other chronic hand-related pain.

What about using a hand mixer?

You can use one electric hand mixer if you don't have a mixer? Absolutely. It's not as convenient and the process is a bit slower, but it will work fine. Be sure to move it up and down and around the bowl as you beat to get as much of the flour/fat mixture as possible.

Yes, there are reasons you might want to make pie crust by hand instead of using a stand mixer. But I hope you now see that using a mixer is not “surrender”; it's just using a handy tool to make smooth, soft pie crusts—which thankfully makes homemade pie accessible to all of us.

Still feeling intimidated by the pie crust process? Try our easiest crust recipe yet: Pie Crust with Melted Butterthat just requires a bowl, a fork and a few minutes of your time: no mixer, no work with cold butter, no spread – no problem!

Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.

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