How My Marijuana Pie Crust Recipe Came About
When I was in my early 20s, I started taking over the Thanksgiving pie making duties in my family. Why? Because I hated refrigerator pie crusts and generic store-bought pies. I felt then, as I do now, that since I don’t eat pie all that often, when I do eat pie I want it to be worth it!
As a kid, my mother would always get mad at me because I would eat the pie filling and leave the crusts. I just did not understand what all the fuss was about pie crusts. To my mind they were dry, flavorless vehicles to carry the filling and nothing more.
Until the day I had an excellent pie crust that was served at a little roadside diner in Maine during a childhood road trip. The crust was as good as the blueberry filling! It was light, it was delicate and flaky, and it had flavor! Aha! Now I understood. And it was then time to infuse that pie crust with cannabis!
Making an Excellent Marijuana Pie Crust
The ingredients required to make a pie crust from scratch are simple, fat, flour, a little salt, and maybe a little sugar. Two major factors influence a good versus a ho-hum piecrust:
- The type of fat(s) used
- The amount of handling the dough goes through
When it comes to fat, vegetable shortening makes the flakiest, most tender pie crusts, but butter gives the best flavor. The best pie crusts use a combination of both. I played around with the ratios for several years before settling on my go-to formula of 3/4 cup butter to 1/2 cup shortening, This will make 2 large pie crusts. You can also half the recipe to make a single pie crust.
You can up the flavor quotient of your piecrust even more by using a premium grass-fed butter, such as Kerrygold. The first time I made piecrust using Kerrygold butter, everyone was blown away. Crusts made with regular butter are good, but crusts made with Kerrygold are spectacular. (No, I am not a brand ambassador, but if the folks at Kerrygold are reading, I’d make a good one. I love the stuff!).
The other factor that affects the overall quality of a piecrust is how much you handle the dough when mixing it and when rolling it. The more dough is handled and rolled and re-rolled, the tougher it will get. Don’t stress too much about this. You can re-roll several times and still have flaky pie crust. Just be aware and try to minimize it as much as possible.
The same goes when mixing the dough in the food processor. If you watch the video below, I pulse the processor, I never just let it run. This is because, for pie, I do not want to develop the gluten in the flour. In other words, pie dough is the opposite of bread dough in this regard.
You can use this basic medicated pie dough recipe for most any pie or quiche. When making savory pies, I usually omit the tablespoon of sugar in the recipe, but the flavor it adds is so subtle you could get away with making a savory pie while leaving it in.
NOTE:
You will need a food processor to make this dough. I will admit that making homemade pie crust without a food processor can be a long tedious process, but with a food processor, it's a breeze! Also, allow plenty of time, as the dough needs to rest overnight before rolling!
This video will show you how to make the Marijuana Pie Crust dough.
Dosage for the Marijuana Pie Crust Recipe
Since pie crust uses so much butter, it would make a mighty strong crust of you used ALL of the butter in the recipe as cannabis butter. Although for those who need a very strong edible, this is an option.
Most folks, however, are going to want to use some cannabis-infused butter mixed with some regular uninfused butter to make their piecrust.
The ratio of cannabis butter to butter, along with the strength of the butter itself, will determine the dosage of the pie.
I urge you to take my free online dosing class to adjust the pie crust dosage to your individual needs. Or better yet, use my Dosage Calculator tool that does all the math for you (see below). Customized dosing is one of the biggest advantages of making your own edibles.
If you use the recipe below as written, each serving will have about 15 mgs THC, IF you used average (10%) THC cannabis and made the butter using a half ounce (14 grams) to make one cup (8 ounces) of cannabis butter, and used 1/4 cup of that butter to make 16 bottom pie crusts. This accounts for the fact you may have a few dough scraps (see further down this post for how to use those).
Again, my free dosing class can help you figure out the dosage for whatever strength cannabis you are using (and how to estimate the percentage if you don’t know it).
Size Options for this Marijuana Pie Crust Recipe
Whenever possible, I like to make medicated food in small servings. Likewise my favorite tools for making pies are ordinary 2-piece canning jar lids.
Why? Well, for one thing baking the pies in Mason Jar lids make cute little desserts that everyone will ohh and ahh over and cause them to tell you how brilliant you are. But more importantly, making small individual pies makes portion control and dosage monitoring so much easier.
For whatever reason, there seems to be a psychological stop that keeps people from going back for a whole other pie, as opposed to taking "just a sliver more" off a large pie.
However, should you choose, you could use this crust recipe to make a single large pie.
I used large wide-mouth canning jar lids to make 16 individual pies 3 1/2-inches in diameter each, you could also choose to use the smaller 2 3/4-inch canning jar lids to make about 24 tiny pies.
Depending on the type of pie you are making, you may or may not need a top crust. Even if I am making two crust pies, I usually make two batches of piecrust dough, one medicated and one not. I use the medicated dough for the bottom crust and top with unmedicated dough. This accomplishes two things:
- It makes it easier to figure dosing as the bottom crusts are all the same size, where the top crusts may vary depending on the styles you opt to make.
- It improves flavor as the medicated part of the pie is only one small component, making the overall flavor of cannabis barely noticeable.
Freezing Marijuana Pie Crusts
Here's another great thing about these piecrusts: they are freezable. Free marijuana pie crusts in one of these three ways:
- Freeze the dough discs. Shape dough into a disc as shown in the video, chill in the fridge for a day, then freeze until whenever you are ready to thaw and roll.
- Freeze unbaked pie shells in the Mason jar lids. Make the bottom pie shell as shown in Video #3, wrap well and freeze until whenever you are ready to fill and bake the pie.
- Freeze the filled pies. This won't work for every pie (forget it with most custard or cream pies), but it does work well for most fruit pies, like my Apple Pie, Pumpkin, and Blueberry Pies. Filled unbaked Pecan Pie also freezes well. Keeping unbaked frozen pies in your freezer allows you to pop one out of the freezer and put it in the hot oven to bake anytime you feel like a fresh from the oven medicated pit. Allow for an extra 5-10 minutes cooking time when baking a frozen pie.
How to Roll Out the Bottom Crusts for Marijuana Mason Jar Lid Pies
No matter if you make my homemade Medicated Pie Crust or if you use a refrigerated pie crust dough you bought at the market, you will need to fill the Mason Jar lids to make the pies. The very first thing you need to do is to turn the lid insert upsidedown, the opposite of how you would use it if canning. This will make a metal bottom and sides for you Mason jar lid pie pan.
This video shows you how to roll out the dough and make the bottom crust.
For those who prefer text and photo instructions:
1. Roll chilled pie crust dough (either homemade or store-bought) to a thickness of about 1/8-inch.
2. Cut a circle of dough slightly larger than the Mason Jar lid.
3. Fit dough into bottom and up the side of the canning jar lid.
4. Photo above shows the finished bottom pie crust, ready for filling.
Top Crusts for Marijuana Mason Jar Lid Pies
Some pies, such as pumpkin or pecan, do not need a top crust. Others, such as Apple or Blueberry, do.
When it comes to topping mini pies, you can really have fun and get creative, or just roll out a circle and attach it like a traditional large pie. The techniques are the same if you are using my homemade Marijuana Pie Crust recipe or if you are using a store-bought refrigerated pie crust dough.
This video will give you some ideas when it comes to making the top crusts on your Mason jar lid marijuana pies.
For those who prefer text and photo instructions, read on!
Top Crust for a Traditional Style Marijuana Fruit Pie
1. Fill bottom crust with about 1/4 cup of pie filling.
2. Cut a circle of dough, slightly larger than the circumference of the bottom crust and center over the filled mini-pie.
3. Pinch the edges of the top and bottom crusts together.
4. Cut a few vents in the crust for steam to escape.
Making An Embossed Top Crust
Here's a slight variation on the traditional double-crusted pie. Roll out a circle as above then use the tines of a fork to press a decorative design into the dough. Top the pie as above.
Making a Lattice Top Pie Crust
The lattice crust pictured here did not make it to the video (as I kept working even after the crew left). To make a lattice topped pie:
1. Cut the dough into thin strips.
2. You can either weave the strips together on the rolling surface, as pictured, then transfer to the pie, OR, since these pies are so small, it's pretty easy to weave the dough strips right on the pie. Press down the edges, brush with an egg wash, and bake.
3. If weaving on the rolling surface, use a wide, floured spatula to transfer the lattice to the pie, the press down the edges before brushing with an egg wash and baking (see recipe below). Press down the edges, brush with an egg wash, and bake.
Cookie Cutter Marijuana Pie Topper
Use a large cookie cutter (I used a marijuana leaf cookie cutter but any shape will do) to cut a decorative shape. Place on top of the pie, brush with egg wash, and bake.
Fun with Dough Dots Pie Toppers
Find a small round object laying around the house -- I used the end of an empty doob tube from a preroll I got at the local dispensary -- to cut a bunch of circles from the dough. Stack the circles around the edge for a decorative look. You can also scatter some of the circles over the filling for a Polka Dot Marijuana Pie.
You can also make a topper by cutting a circle out fo the piece of dough you used to cut the circles, as in the middle pie in the photo below. Press down around the edges to seal.
What to do with Medicated Pie Crust Dough Scraps
OK, no matter how carefully you roll out your marijuana pies, you are bound to have some dough scraps left over. With a regular pie, most people just scrap these, but this is medicated dough so you are likewise not going to waste any of it!
No worries. Just take the scraps and roll them into tiny balls. Roll these in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and bake for about 10 minutes until set for some tiny medicated cinnamon sugar cookies.
More for Cannabis Pie Lovers!
This recipe is part of a much longer feature on making marijuana pies. Click here for lots more delicious medicated marijuana pie recipes, plus video and text tutorials to help you make AMAZING cannabis-infused mini-pies!
Amazing Marijuana Pie Crust for Mason Jar Lid Cannabis Pies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup butter chilled and cut into small cubes
- 1/4 cup cannabis infused butter chilled and cut into small cubes
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening such as Crisco, chilled
- 1/2 cup ice water
For Baking:
- 1 large egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water
- 1 tablespoon coarse raw sugar optional
Instructions
- Place flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse to blend.
- Add butter, cannabutter, and shortening to the food processor. Pulse about 20 times or so (see video instructions) until you have coarse crumbs.
- Add ice water and pulse about 20 more times. Mixture will look like a lot of dried flour, but will hold together if you press it. Dump contents of food processor onto a clean surface.
- Divide mixture in half.
- Press each half into a ball.
- Place dough ball in the middle of a large sheet of plastic wrap and press into a disc. Chill overnight before continuing. This will give the fats and the flour a chance to meld.
- When it’s time to roll, I like to roll between 2 sheets of plastic wrap in order to avoid adding lots of extra flour. That said, flour your rolling surfaces and even the plastic wrap to avoid sticking. Roll the dough disc to about 1/8 inch thickness. There is a video above this recipe that shows you how to do it. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to fill. See the individual pie recipes for filling and top crust instructions.
- Before baking, beat egg and water together and brush a light coating over top pie crust. If using a pie from the freezer, do this step after freezing and right before baking. Dust with a sprinkling of coarse natural sugar for a professional look.
Notes
Making Marijuana Butter & Dosing
This tutorial will teach you to make the marijuana butter used in this recipe. **This dose is only a suggestion.  For more PRECISE dosing, be sure to take my FREE online dosing class.Please Support our Sponsor
How long do these pies usually last in the freezer?
I would say at least 4 months or more. One of the secrets to successfully freezing foods is to wrap well. I will usually put them in unwrapped just until they freeze hard (that way the crust is not so delicate) then wrap in plastic wrap and again in foil…if I am intending to save them a long time. If I know they will get eaten in a week or two, a single good wrap is enough.
I hope you enjoy the pies!