Don’t buy fancy butter to make great pie. Here’s why

When it comes to the fat in pie dough, there are no kings.

In terms of its ingredients, pie dough couldn’t be more straightforward: For the most part, it’s flour, butter and water. With so few ingredients, it begs the question: Does the quality of the butter make a difference?

Typical American butter — brands such as Land O’Lakes, Cabot, Challenge and supermarket private labels — contains 80% butterfat. Many of the brands also offer extra-creamy lines. These “European-style” butters have a higher butterfat content. Kerrygold from Ireland has a butterfat content of 82% to 83%, and Plugra, which is made in the U.S., is 82% butterfat.

Ironically, European-style butters with the highest percentage of fat are from small American creameries: Straus Family Creamery in Marin County makes a European-style butter with 85% butterfat, and Vermont Creamery has a whopping 86%.

Some sources say that European-style, higher-butterfat butter makes a difference in baked goods, but speaking strictly for pie dough right now, how could it? At least in any noticeable way.

What isn’t butterfat in butter — that other 14% to 20% — is water (with an insignificant amount of milk solids, and in the case of salted butter, salt). And you add water to pie dough anyway. (In my pie crust, I substitute heavy cream for some of the water, a “trick” I learned from pastry chef Nancy Silverton, who does so because, she says, in addition to hydrating the dough, the cream brings with it fat and flavor.)

The water in butter evaporates in the baking process, creating steam pockets in the dough, which is what forms the layers and translates into flakiness. So it wouldn’t make sense that less water (fewer steam pockets, fewer layers) would be superior.

I did a test of Land O’Lakes vs. Kerrygold. The one thing that Kerrygold added to the dough was color. Kerrygold has a bright, rich yellow hue that comes from the grass the cows graze on, and that makes for a buttery-colored dough. But that color didn’t translate to the baked crust.

I baked the dough off into little crackers. The Land O’Lakes crackers were light and flaky. As hopeful as I was about the Kerrygold, what with that beautiful buttery-colored dough, the crackers were flat. Barely a flaky layer in sight.

Of course, both were delicious. Butter is butter. There’s no question that butter, any butter, does reign supreme when it comes to contributing flavor to pie dough.

For flakiness, there are still those who swear that shortening makes for the flakiest pie crust, which, more widely known by the brand name Crisco, is a solid fat made from primarily soybean and palm oils. Crisco is so popular in baking that, previously offered only in small tubs, the product is now sold in sticks, so it can be used in a recipe without making a mess stuffing it into a measuring cup.

Lard (rendered pork fat) — specifically “leaf lard,” which comes from the fat around the kidney and loin of the pig — is also said to make for a flaky pie crust. And when I worked at a bakery in a billionaire enclave in the Hamptons, we made the dough with — gasp! — margarine. To my knowledge, nobody complained, or even noticed. The crust was light and flaky and reasonably flavorful. The fruit was juicy and jammy and delicious. It was summertime in one of the most beautiful corners of the earth, and our customers, it would seem, were just happy to have pie.

So what do I suggest? Use regular butter.

If you want to experiment with Crisco or lard, use that in combination with butter. And if you are entering a pie contest that you really want to win, experiment with combinations of Crisco or lard and European butter. Yes, I might use Kerrygold for that small possibility that it might make a smidgen of difference in the flavor or the color.

And if I were baking something that didn’t involve piles of stewed fruit, like biscuits, I might splurge. But I guess it would depend on who I was making them for; for the kings and queens in my life, then yes.

Absolutely.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Ray Garcia, chef of the now-closed beloved modern Mexican restaurant Broken Spanish, calls for European-style 83% butterfat in these biscuits. The butter is frozen and grated, a trick that allows you to mix the butter in with the flour while keeping it as cold as possible. That way the butter melts in the oven, creating those coveted light, flaky layers.
Get the recipe.
Cooking time: 1 hour. Makes about 12 biscuits.

(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Mixed Berry Pie With Cinnamon Crumble Topping

This pie has the best of both worlds: a crispy, flaky bottom crust and a crunchy crumble topping. This topping is unusual, as it has an egg in it, so it’s like crunchy cookie dough dropped in clumps on the pie. For the filling, I cook the sugar first and then add the blackberries, to give them a head start. If I start with raw blackberries, I find that even after over an hour of baking, they don’t break down and still look like whole blackberries. I add the cornstarch here too, to make sure the fruit filling sets. The pie is baked on the lowest rack to ensure a browned, crisp bottom crust. If you have a pizza stone, use that.
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Cooking time: 2 hours. Makes 1 9-inch round pie.

(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)

Summer Berry Double-Crust Slab Pie

From the L.A. Times’ long-running Culinary S.O.S. column, this recipe comes courtesy of Koreatown’s historic Cuban restaurant El Colmao. Writer Astrid Kayembe highlighted the restaurant’s popular ropa vieja dish in her guide to the city’s best Caribbean spots, but the signature pollo al colmao translates the classic stewed chicken dish through a family recipe.
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Cooking time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Makes 1 9-by-13-inch pie.

(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)