Description

The perfect healthier pie crust for a sweet or savoury pie! It’s as simple as hand-mixing the ingredients, rolling out the dough (or pressing it thinly directly into the pie dish), shaping and baking. This crust is quick to make, and chilling the dough before shaping is optional. The recipe is gluten-free, vegan and nut-free.

Makes two crusts, enough dough for one double-crusted 8-inch or 9-inch pie. A half recipe makes one 8-inch crust (no top crust).

Kitchen & Baking Tools: Mixing bowl, spoon, measuring cups/spoons, kitchen scale, parchment paper, pie dish (or 9.5-in springform pan).

Ingredients

Scale

2 tablespoons flaxseed meal (20 g)
1/2 cup boiling water (118 g/118 ml)
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
2 cups AP GF flour (240 g), see notes
1 cup sunflower seed flour (84 g)
1 /2 teaspoon sea salt (4 g)
4 tablespoons organic extra virgin olive oil

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Instructions

Before you begin, scroll through the process photos in the blog post. The full recipe video is a must-watch to learn even more tricks to help you with this recipe. Or watch the 50-sec How-To YouTube Shorts.

If baking the pie crust right away, preheat your oven to 350°F while preparing the dough.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the boiling water with the flaxseed meal and give it a quick mix with a spoon or whisk. Add the maple syrup, the GF all-purpose flour (or custom GF flour and starch blend, see post for details), sunflower seed flour, and sea salt and combine the ingredients by mixing with a spoon. Pour in the olive oil and continue mixing until crumbly. Use your hands to finish mixing and gather the dough into a ball.
Transfer the dough to a parchment-lined working surface. If making a whole batch of dough for a double-crusted pie, reserve one-third of the dough for the top crust. To prevent drying, wrap the reserved dough in plastic wrap. Flatten the large piece of dough to a 6-inch disc and place a second sheet of parchment overtop.
With a rolling pin, roll out the dough to a large circle, up to 2 inches larger than your pie dish (approx. 12-14 inches). TIP: It’s ok to fold over thinner edges and roll them again to achieve a uniform thickness throughout.
Carefully transfer the rolled-out dough to a pie dish (see post or video for tips). Trim excess overhanging dough, but keep enough to help shape the dough and create an edge (add dough trimmings to the second crust). Fix any cracks, and crimp the edge. Dock (prick) the bottom of the crust a few times with a fork to allow steam to escape. For a double-crusted pie, roll out the second piece of dough and place it overtop the filled bottom crust. Shape, seal edges and score a few vents to allow steam to escape.
Pre-bake a single or bottom crust for 15 minutes, cool for 10 minutes, then add filling and continue baking according to the recipe.
A full-baked single crust can take 25-30 minutes to bake. Once ready, cool the crust, then add pie filling, such as a cream or pudding-like filling that doesn’t require extra baking.
For a double-crusted pie (i.e., vegetable pot pies), it can take 55 to 70 minutes to bake. Shape the bottom crust into a pie dish (or springform pan), add the freshly made filling (it can still be a little warm but not piping hot), place the top crust, shape and seal the edges and bake. The pie is ready when the edges are golden and the filling starts bubbling through the vents.
For double-crusted fruit pies or pot pies, let the freshly baked pie cool and set for 30 minutes or more before serving. Enjoy!

Notes

If you don’t have flax but do have whole psyllium husk, use some as an alternative but reduce the quantity to half. The flaxseed meal combined with the hot water helps to keep the dough together, so it doesn’t tear so easily.

If you want to use a gluten-free flour mix such as Bob’s Red Mill 1:1, and it does have xanthan gum, you might be able to reduce the flaxseed meal to half or eliminate it altogether. That variation was not tested for this recipe, nor was that specific brand of flour.

In Canada, Purest.ca produces a great gluten-free flour blend without xanthan gum that includes brown and white rice flour with potato starch. Making a pie crust with only rice flour and some starch can create a gritty texture. Anita’s Organics produces a wonderful all-purpose gluten-free vegan flour blend. It contains certified gluten-free oat flour as well as brown rice flour, coconut flour, potato starch, tapioca flour/starch, and arrowroot powder/starch. This blend creates a lovely dough texture that is easier to shape.

Make your own GF flour blend. Try the following: 65-75% (about 1-1/2 cups/180 g) light gluten-free flour. A combo of 2-3 flours works best (e.i., GF oat flour, brown or white rice flour, millet, sorghum, light buckwheat flour), 25-35% (approx. 1/2 cup/60 g) starches. A combo of at least 2 is ideal (e.i., tapioca starch, potato starch, arrowroot starch, cassava flour), plus 1 cup/84 g sunflower seed flour.

Chantal’s Flour Combo Example: 1/2 cup (60 g), GF oat flour, 1/2 cup (60 g), light buckwheat flour and 1/2 cup (60 g), sorghum flour, Starch Combo: 1/4 cup tapioca starch (30 g), a little less than 1/4 cup potato starch (30 g), and Seed Flour: 1 cup sunflower seed flour (84 g).

To make sunflower seed flour, it’s as simple as milling/blending organic raw sunflower seeds in a small blender or spice grinder. Almond flour or almond meal is an alternative to sunflower seed flour if you do not have a nut allergy. Tiger nut flour (not an actual nut) would be an alternative.