Gluten Free Graham Cracker Crust — 2 Ways
Make a perfect graham cracker crust using as few as 2 ingredients that can hold any style of pie filling—baked or no bake alike. The perfect summer crust!
Yield: 1 9-inch pie crust
Equipment
- Blender or food processor
Ingredients
For the baked graham cracker crust
- 1 ½ cups (300 g) gluten free graham crackers (I used my homemade gluten free graham crackers; you'd need 11 ounces prepared graham crackers if you're using store-bought)
- 4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled
- 1 (50 g (weighed out of shell)) egg at room temperature, beaten
For the no-bake graham cracker crust
- 1 ¾ cups (350 g) gluten free graham crackers (again, my homemade version is my favorite)
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter melted
Instructions
To make the baked crust.
- Preheat your oven to 300°F. Grease an oven-safe pie pan, standard 12-cup muffin tin, or cake panel pan, and set it aside.
- Place the graham crackers in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade or a relatively powerful blender.
- The less power your machine has, the more you should break the graham crackers by hand into smaller pieces.
- Process until the cookies have become small, soft crumbs.
- In a medium-size bowl, place the graham cracker crumbs and create a well in the center with a spoon.
- In the center of the well, add the melted butter and beaten egg, and mix to combine.
- The mixture will not be very wet, but will hold together when squeezed in a fist.
- Transfer the mixture to the prepared pie pan and, using clean fingers, press into an even layer across the bottom and halfway up the sides of the pan.
- I find it helpful to place a piece of unbleached parchment paper on top of the crust and then press the mixture into a smooth layer with the palms of my hands before removing the paper.
- If you’re using a muffin tin or cake panel pan, divide the mixture evenly among the wells and press each into the wells in a similar manner.
- Place the pan in the center of the preheated oven and bake until slightly puffed and matte-looking all the way in the center (about 10 minutes for a full pie; about 8 minutes for a standard muffin tin; about 9 minutes for a cake panel pan).
- If the crust has developed bubbles, you can pop them carefully with a toothpick but they will settle down as the crust cools.
- Allow the crust to cool completely in the pan at room temperature before filling however you’d like.
To make the no-bake crust.
- Grease very lightly an oven-safe pie pan or cake panel pan and set it aside.
- If you’re using a cake panel pan, for each well, cut a piece of unbleached parchment paper that is about 1-inch wide and long enough to cross the center of the well and up each side. This will act as a sling to help you remove the crusts when you’re ready.
- If you’d like to make very small crusts, you’ll need a mini cheesecake pan with removable bottoms in each well.
- Place the graham crackers in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade or a relatively powerful blender.
- The less power your machine has, the more you should break the graham crackers by hand into smaller pieces.
- Process until the cookies have become small, soft crumbs. In a medium-size bowl, place the graham cracker crumbs and create a well in the center with a spoon.
- In the center of the well, add the melted butter and mix to combine. The mixture will be quite wet.
- Transfer the mixture to the prepared pie pan or divide the mixture evenly among the wells of the cake panel pan and place on top of each parchment paper sling.
- Using clean fingers, press the mixture into an even layer across the bottom and halfway up the sides of the pie pan or each well of the cake panel pan.
- Place the pan in the refrigerator to chill for 10 minutes.
- If you’d like to fill the whole pie shell right away, do so and proceed with the instructions for the pie recipe you are following.
- If you’d like to fill the crusts in the cake panel pan right away, run a dull knife around the edge of each crust and pull on each tab to loosen each crust from the pan.
- Either remove the crusts and freeze or refrigerate them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet or fill the crusts and proceed with the instructions for the pie recipe you are following.