Pie Crust Lab · Calculator

Design your own pie crust

The sliders start at the typical crust: the median of 179 recipes for each ingredient, in grams per 100 g of flour. Move any of them within the range that 90% of recipes use (the 5th to the 95th percentile) and the grams update, with where your choice sits among the recipes and what that ingredient does.

This scales ratios; it is not a tested recipe. Each ingredient moves on its own against the flour, and a combination no recipe uses may not bake the way you expect. For the method, pan and oven, follow the real recipes nearest your numbers.

Flour

Flour weight (g)

160 g, about 1 1/4 cups, makes one typical crust.

Start from a recipe

Load a real recipe's percentages into the sliders. Search by title or site.

Grams per 100 g of flour

Fat
105 g · 65%about 1/2 cup
In the middle: 50% of recipes use more, 49% less.
Cold butter, shortening or lard flattened into sheets that steam apart in the oven: the flakes. Butter tastes best, shortening is easier to handle.
Water
47 g · 30%about 3 tbsp
In the middle: 51% of recipes use more, 48% less.
Just enough ice water to hold the dough together; more is easier to roll but tougher to eat.
Salt
2 g · 1.4%
In the middle: 49% of recipes use more, 46% less.
Salt gives an otherwise bland crust its flavor.
Sugar
2 g · 1.4%about 1/2 tsp
In the middle: 48% of recipes use more, 51% less.
A little sugar for sweet pies; many recipes use none.

Your pie crust

Your pie crust in grams, with approximate volumes
Ingredient	Grams
Flour	160 gabout 1 1/4 cups
Fatbutter, oil and shortening	105 gabout 1/2 cup
Watermilk, buttermilk, yogurt, cream and water	47 gabout 3 tbsp
Salt	2 g
Sugarwhite sugar, brown sugar, honey and syrups	2 gabout 1/2 tsp
Total	316 g

316 g in all from 160 g of flour, counting only the groups above.

Closest real recipe: Perfect All-Purpose Pie Crust (bakerbettie.com).

BakeThe median of 46 recipes is 390°F (200°C), most for 15 to 39 minutes at their own size. A bigger or smaller batch, or a different pan, changes the time.

The 3 real recipes nearest your numbers

Measured on fat, water, salt and sugar at once. These are published, tested recipes: follow one for its method, pan and timing, or load its percentages and adjust from there.

1
Perfect All-Purpose Pie Crust · bakerbettie.com
fat 63% · water 30% · salt 1.3% · sugar 0%
2
Perfect Pie Crust · onceuponachef.com
fat 66% · water 32% · salt 1.6% · sugar 0%
3
Whole Wheat Pie Crust with Butter · farmhouseonboone.com
fat 65% · water 34% · salt 1.4% · sugar 0%

How the calculator works

Every recipe is reduced to baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient group per 100 g of flour. The starting point is the median of all 179 recipes for each group separately, so no single recipe is exactly the starting crust. Grams are your flour weight times each percentage, rounded to the nearest 5 g above 50 g and the nearest gram or half gram below.

“More than 80% of recipes” counts the recipes with strictly less of that ingredient per gram of flour. The nearest recipes are measured on every ingredient at once, each scaled by how much recipes vary on it, so a wide-ranging ingredient does not outweigh a narrow one.

Only the groups listed are counted. Vanilla, spices, mix-ins and toppings are left out unless they have their own slider. Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.