Whole Wheat and Walnut Pie Crust

Introduction

With Thanksgiving around the corner, the season of pumpkin and apple pies is upon us.

Enter my new go-to pie crust made from whole wheat pastry flour and walnuts.

Whole-Food Plant-Based Compliance

While I have been using a delicious olive oil whole wheat pie crust recipe for many years now, I decided it was time to try to find a tasty oil free, whole food alternative.

I was not searching for a fat free alternative as I know that healthy fats are necessary for proper absorption of fat soluble vitamins and other nutrients.

Proponents of the whole-food, plant-based diet argue that it is best to source fat from whole food sources such as nuts, seeds and fatty vegetables like avocado.

This way, we benefit from the full range of nutrients that are available in the whole foods, not just the fat.

My goal was to find a simple, healthy go-to pie crust recipe packed with flavor.

Ratio Calculation

My starting point was the 3-2-1 Pie dough ratio suggested by Michael Ruhlman in his book “Ratio” where the dough is made using 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part water. (A part is measured by weight.)

As you will see below, I departed from this ratio, but I did want to share it with you because it is a good starting point if you want to experiment making your own pie crust with different flours and fats.

Instead of olive oil for the fat, I decided to look into a neutral tasting nut.

I experimented with various nuts including walnuts, cashews and peanuts.

Walnut turned out to be a clear winner for its neutral taste and soft texture in the final dough.

When creating the recipe I needed to figure out the ratio of whole grain flour to walnut and water.

Since nuts are not 100% fat, but rather (and that is the point) they also contain nutritious protein and fiber rich carbohydrates, I needed to do some math to get to the ideal 3:2:1 ratio.

For a given 100 gram serving, walnuts contain 65 grams of fat, 15 grams of protein and 14 grams of carbohydrates (which includes 6.7 grams of dietary fiber).

In addition, whole wheat flour contains 12% fiber by weight and around 60% starch vs white flour which contains only 3% fiber and around 68% starch.

Because fiber is more absorbent than starch, I ended up using more water and with a ratio closer to 3 parts flour/protein/fiber to 2 parts fat and 2 parts water.

As usual, I used grams in the recipe because it is easier to scale up or down with them and you can obtain consistent results using a digital scale and precise measurements.

Pan Size

The amount of dough in the recipe is enough to cover the interior a 9.5 inch Pyrex pie plate.

Ingredient Discussion

Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

I used home milled pastry flour for this recipe – ground from Sonora soft white wheat berries.

Sonora is my favorite soft white wheat because of its buttery flavor and fine bran texture.

Sonora wheat is a heirloom grain that has regained popularity in recent years and it is now possible to find many online sources of both the wheat berries and the flour.

For optimal success with whole wheat flours it is best to rest the dough overnight.

The rest time helps to soften the bran and make the resulting whole wheat pie crust more digestible.

Walnuts

When using whole foods, there is the benefit of getting more nutrients but there can be issues with digestibility if the whole foods are not properly prepared.

Therefore, for this new recipe, I researched how to best prepare walnuts.

In order to neutralize the phytic acid and tannins in walnuts, they can be soaked overnight in a water and salt solution.

As can be seen in the picture below, soaking leaves behind a dark tannic water.

In this recipe, for optimum digestibility, I soak walnuts overnight before using them in the pie crust recipe.

This obviously takes a little more planning but on the positive side, pie dough can be prepared ahead of time and kept frozen for a few months if needed.

Salt

The salt brings out the sweetness of the dough.

I used Himalayan Sea Salt in this recipe.

Iodized salt can impart an off flavor to food therefore, if possible, a non iodized salt such as kosher or sea salt is preferable.

Baking Powder

The baking powder brings some extra lightness to the final dough as I found to be the case when using my prior go-to tupperware dough recipe with olive oil as the only fat.

Conclusion

This whole wheat and walnut pie crust is packed with flavor as well as nutrition.

Just in time to complement your fall and winter pie creations.

Yum!

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