Easy Flaky All Butter Pie Crust -- The Foundation Under Cheryl Carter’s Sweet Potato Pie

Thanksgiving. The holiest day on the Cheryl Carter calendar. Mama starts planning the Thanksgiving menu in October. She starts cooking on Tuesday. By Thursday, the duplex on the east side smells like heaven if heaven had a kitchen and a cast-iron skillet collection. The menu, because it deserves documentation: roast turkey (brined for twenty-four hours, rubbed with butter and herbs, roasted until golden), cornbread dressing (not stuffing — dressing, cooked separately in a pan, made from crumbled cornbread, sauteed celery and onion, sage, and turkey broth), macaroni and cheese (four cheeses — cheddar, colby jack, cream cheese, and Velveeta — layered with cooked macaroni and baked until the top is golden), collard greens (smoked turkey neck, vinegar, sugar, red pepper flakes, cooked for hours), candied yams (sweet potatoes baked with butter, brown sugar, and marshmallows on top), cranberry sauce (from a can, the only shortcut Mama allows, because she says the canned kind is "better and anyone who says otherwise is lying"), dinner rolls (from scratch, risen twice, golden), and deviled eggs. Desserts: sweet potato pie, pecan pie, banana pudding, and a German chocolate cake that is not German and barely qualifies as cake — it is a vehicle for the coconut-pecan frosting, which is the real star. Mama makes everything from scratch except the cranberry sauce and the dinner rolls if she is running behind, in which case she uses Hawaiian rolls and dares anyone to comment. The whole family was there. Dad carved the turkey with the same knife he has used for thirty years. Keisha brought wine, which Mama tolerated. Darius and Tanya brought a fruit salad that nobody ate because fruit has no place at Thanksgiving (this is a Carter family position, not a universal truth). Marc brought himself and his appetite, which was all anyone expected. Brianna and Gloria were both present, which required diplomatic seating arrangements that I managed with the care of a UN negotiator. Aiden sat in his high chair and ate yams and cornbread and turkey that Brianna cut into pieces so small they were practically molecular. He said "mo" eight times. He said "yum" for the first time ever, specifically in response to the mac and cheese, and Mama pointed at me and said, "See? The baby knows quality." I said, "We all know, Mama. We have always known." I ate until I could not breathe and then ate dessert, which required a different section of the stomach that only activates on Thanksgiving. This is the day I am most grateful to be a Carter, to be from Detroit, to be my mother's son. The food is not just food. It is the accumulated love of a woman who has been feeding people since before I was born and will feed people until they pry the wooden spoon from her hands. Happy Thanksgiving.

Every Thanksgiving, after the plates are cleared and I’m sitting there in that beautiful, immovable state of fullness, I think about dessert—specifically, the pie crust, which is the foundation that holds everything together, same as Mama has always been for us. This year, with Aiden saying “yum” for the first time and the whole family somehow seated and fed and at peace, I wanted to make sure the crust underneath that pie was worthy of the occasion. An all-butter crust is not the easy road, but easy was never what the Carters were about. Here’s the one I came back to.

Easy Flaky All Butter Pie Crust

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Chill Time: 1 hour | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Servings: 1 standard 9-inch pie crust (8 slices)

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, very cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 3 to 5 tablespoons ice water

Instructions

1. Combine dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl until evenly mixed.
2. Cut in the butter. Add the cold butter cubes to the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter or your fingertips, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter remaining. Those butter pockets are what create the flaky layers — do not overwork.
3. Add ice water. Drizzle in ice water one tablespoon at a time, stirring gently with a fork after each addition. Stop adding water when the dough just holds together when you press a small handful. It should not feel wet or sticky.
4. Form and chill. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently press into a flat disk. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days. Do not skip this step — resting the dough relaxes the gluten and keeps the crust tender.
5. Roll out the crust. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for 5 minutes. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough from the center outward into a 12-inch circle, rotating the dough a quarter turn after each roll to keep it even.
6. Transfer to pie dish. Carefully fold the dough in half, then in half again, and lift it into a 9-inch pie dish. Unfold and gently press it into the bottom and sides without stretching. Trim any overhang to about 1 inch beyond the rim, then fold the edge under and crimp as desired.
7. Blind bake (if required). For custard-style pies like sweet potato or pecan, line the crust with parchment paper, fill with pie weights or dried beans, and bake at 375°F for 15 minutes. Remove weights and parchment, then bake 5 minutes more until the bottom looks dry and just barely golden. Fill and bake according to your pie recipe.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 175 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 15g | Fiber: 0.5g | Sodium: 145mg