A classic no-frills flaky pie crust — this recipe makes enough for one 9”/10” pie. 

Ingredients: 

2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting

16 Tbsp cold unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into rough tablespoons

1 Tbsp sugar, heaping

1 tsp kosher salt, heaping

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1/3-1/2 cup ice water

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
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Method:

-In your largest bowl, mix together flour, salt, and sugar until combined. 

-Add cold butter to bowl and toss with hands until the butter is coated in flour mixture.

-Smash, squeeze, and break cold butter chunks with your fingers until much of the mixture resembles a coarse meal but there are still plenty of pieces of butter about the size of blueberries in the mix. Flatten some of these blueberry-sized butter chunks by smearing between your palms (this will help ensure a flakey crust).

-If the butter has gone soft at any point and has begun to stick to your hands, place the entire bowl into the fridge or freezer for 15 minutes to firm up. Otherwise, proceed.

-Mix vinegar and ice water together, then add to the flour mixture one tablespoon at a time, tossing with hands in between additions. 

-The amount of water you will need varies —  so add water until the mixture holds together when pressed into a ball, but is still a little crumbly, and isn’t sticky to the touch. You may need more than the listed amount, this is ok!

-Once ideal texture is reached, pour the slightly shaggy mixture onto a lightly floured surface.

-Fold your dough: Roll out the dough into a long rectangle-ish shape — short side facing you. The sides of your dough may have cracked a little, that is totally fine at this step.

-Fold the dough like a letter: fold the far side down towards you, then the side closest to you on top of that.  

-Press it all back together, rotate the dough 90 degrees, then repeat the roll and fold, sprinkling with extra flour as needed to prevent sticking. These folds are similar to what you would do to make a croissant -- this is what is going to create all your flakey layers! 

-Shape the dough into a rough disk, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the fridge to chill. Chill for at least an hour before use. 

-Pie dough can be made up to a month in advance, stored well wrapped in the freezer. Upon use, defrost in the fridge for 24 hours before rolling out.

-Once chilled (or defrosted), preheat the oven to 350, and roll out the dough on a freshly floured surface into a circle roughly 2” wider than the tin. Dough should be about ¼” thick — trim off any excess with scissors. 

-Drape the pie dough into the pie tin, ensuring it is fully lining the tin all the way to the bottom. 

-Fold excess dough around the edge of the tin underneath itself, to create a lip -- then crimp as desired. 

-Place in the freezer for at least 20 minutes, or fridge for an hour 

-Par-bake your crust: Line the inside of the pie with two pieces of foil, leaving some excess overhang around the edges to fold over your crimped crust (to prevent over-browning.) Fill the lined pie shell with pie weights, beans, or sugar, something to weigh it down. 

-Place lined and weighted pie onto a sheet pan, and place in the oven. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes until the crust has started to lightly brown. 

-Remove pie crust from oven and carefully remove foil and weights, set these aside to cool. Prick the bottom of the pie crust with a fork to prevent ballooning and return your pie crust to the oven for an additional 10 - 15 minutes. 

-We are looking for the pie crust to look slightly browned at the edges, and for the bottom of the pie to look dry, with no “wet” spots of butter. This will ensure a deeply browned and flaky crust at the end of baking, with no soggy bottom. 

-Cool par-baked crust to room temperature before filling with butter cake batter and pecan toffee goo. 

-Unfilled par-baked pie crust can be made 1-2 days ahead of time, wrapped in plastic, stored in the fridge, or, for up to a month in the freezer. 

This part couldn't be simpler, why mess with a classic? Using pre-made boxed cake mix is essential for that nostalgic, buttery flavor. 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup yellow cake mix

4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 large egg
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Method:

-In a medium bowl, whisk together cake mix and melted butter, followed by the egg.

-Set aside while you make the toffee filling.

This recipe begins by making a buttery toffee, then deglazing with heavy cream. By cooking the sugar and butter to the toffee stage you end up with a deeper, toastier, buttery-er flavor than if you had just mixed it all together in a bowl. If you really want to kick this up a notch, make an extra batch of toffee and crush it into bits in a plastic bag, sprinkle over your finished pie for a bonus buttery crunch.  

Ingredients:

1 cup light brown sugar

8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter

6 Tbsp heavy cream

4 egg yolks 

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

big pinch salt

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1 cup pecans, roughly chopped, toasted on a sheet tray in the oven at 325 until golden brown (about 10 - 15 minutes)
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Method:

-Pre-heat the oven to 350 f.

-This recipe requires some quick work once the toffee is finished, so pre-measure the heavy cream and vanilla extract together in a small bowl and keep nearby, ditto to your egg yolks, you don’t want to be separating the eggs last minute for this one! 

-Here’s the thing with toffee, you want the butter and sugar to come together into a cohesive mixture, but sometimes it does so in stages, at points the toffee may look separated, this is fine, just keep whisking and all should be good. Furthermore, even if the toffee looks a bit separated at the end of cooking — once deglazed with the heavy cream and whisked vigorously, it should come back together. So don’t worry, stay the course. 

-Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat, once melted add the light brown sugar and salt. Whisk until all chunks of brown sugar are saturated with butter. 

-Once the mixture begins to bubble, whisk vigorously until it has become homogenous, with no pools of butter visible. Keep whisking regularly for 5 minutes, until the mixture has become golden brown and smells toasty. 

-Remove the toffee from the heat and whisk vigorously until homogeneous, then, slowly and carefully stream in the heavy cream/vanilla mixture. The toffee will bubble and sputter and produce a ton of steam, so be careful. 

-Once cream is fully incorporated, and egg yolks one at a time, whisking all the while. 

-Stir in toasted pecans to the mixture, ensuring nuts are fully coated. 

-Spread the Butter Cake Layer the bottom of your par-baked pie crust using a spoon. 

-Pour Toffee Pecan Goo over top of the butter cake filled par-baked pie crust. 

-Place filled pie on a sheet tray and bake at 350 f for 25 - 35 minutes. 

-The pie should be deeply browned and candied looking on top, the cake layer should feel bouncy to the touch —  the edges should look slightly set, but the pie should still jiggle in the center when shaked.

-Allow to cool for at least an hour before serving, or, pie can be made up to a day ahead of time, stored well wrapped in plastic in the fridge.