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The cream cheese pie crust recipe calls for cream cheese and butter which creates a tender and flaky crust. This is my go-to recipe for pie crust. It bakes beautifully and doesn’t become soggy. It can be used for any kind of pie and also works well for a woven lattice top.
For the Cream Cheese Pie Crust:
makes 2 (9-inch) pie crusts (top & bottom for 1 pie)
2 cups plus 4 Tbsp all-purpose flour *measured correctly
2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks (12 tbsp) COLD, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4″ cubes
6 oz (3/4 package) COLD cream cheese, cut into 1/4″ cubes
3 to 5 Tbsp cold heavy whipping cream
*Watch our easy video tutorial on how to measure correctly
How to Make the Perfect Flaky Pie Crust:
1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar and salt.
2. Cut the COLD butter and COLD cream cheese into 1/4-inch pieces. Using a Pastry Blender
3. Drizzle 3 Tbsp cold heavy cream over the dough and cut into the dough with a spatula, adding more cream as needed until the dough forms moist clumps. I didn’t get much of a drizzle trying to take of picture of this step at the same time. Your drizzle will be better 😉
4. Divide the dough into 2 pieces, press into flat disks, cover each piece tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. It stores well in the fridge up to 2 days.
Flaky Cream Cheese Pie Crust Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups plus 4 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 sticks, 12 tbsp COLD, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4" cubes
- 6 oz 3/4 package COLD cream cheese, cut into 1/4" cubes
- 3 Tbsp to 5 Tbsp cold heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar and salt.
- Cut the COLD butter and COLD cream cheese into 1/4-inch pieces. Using a Pastry Blender or a food processor with blade attachment, cut the butter and cream cheese into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs with pea-sized pieces. Note: you could use a knife, but that would take forever.
- Drizzle 3 tbsp cold heavy cream over the dough and cut into the dough with a spatula, adding more cream as needed until the dough forms moist clumps.
- Divide the dough into 2 pieces, press into flat disks, cover each piece tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour. It stores well in the fridge up to 2 days.
What would be good to use instead of heavy whip cream in this pie crust? How about sour cream?
To be honest, I haven’t tried substituting with anything so I can’t say for sure. I do think the fat from the heavy cream helps with the texture of the dough though.
There isn’t baking instructions temp? Time?
This is just the recipe for the dough. I have other pie recipes on the site that utilize this dough with baking instructions and time but they are specific to those pies. Hope this helps :).
still, a link to a recipe that uses this crust would be very helpful for apple cake types and some custards.
My family always say’s I make the best crust. I am always looking for a challenge and one better, I tried tne Cream Cheese. Big disaster. All went fine until the cream to moisten. Was not enough, added 2 more Tbs. There was no flaky,(was tough and had to work it too much) and no taste. Will use my own as it has the best taste and also flaky crust.
Hi Donna, I’m sorry to hear that :(. Adding too much cream can cause the dough to lose it’s crumbly flakiness. How did you measure your flour – did you use a dry ingredients measuring cup and scrape off the top? It almost sounds like there was too much flour if you had to use more cream.
So glad I found this pie crust recipe! It will be my new go to. Flavorful and easy to work with 🙂 whipped it up in just a few minutes using my kitchenaid stand mixer. Anybody ever tried using milk in place of heavy cream?
I haven’t tried it with milk but I suspect the recipe needs the fat from the cream.
This was my firs time making a pie. Thanks for the great recipe and tutorial. The only problem I faced was after adding the 3T if cream I found my dough to be extremely crumbly and dry. There was no way I would have been able to form it into a disc. I ended up adding an extra 2T of cream for a total of 5T and was then able to form the dough into discs. I still found the dough difficult to handle and to roll out. Not sure what I might have done wrong! In the end, the pie looked and tasted great, so all was well 😉
HI Mckenzie! I’m glad you still liked the dough :). When measuring your flour, did you scoop it into a measuring cup and scrape off the top? If not, it’s easy to overdo on the four and need extra cream. I hope that helps 🙂
So if i were to make one pie crust I would cut the recipe in half?
Yes you could do that. You could also make the full recipe, split it in half and freeze the second half for another day :).
Hi Natasha, thank you for the advice. Here’s the website for the recipe I’m making
Parsleysagesweet. Com and it’s a cheesecake pumpkin pecan pie. The recipe says to prebake crust in 400 degrees for 15 mins and place a lightly butter foil then pie weights down. Then remove crust from oven and remove pie weights and foil&prick bottom and sides of crust bake another 7 mins and let it cool on cookie sheet. Then after adding cream cheese filling to the prebake crust put in freezer for 10-15 mins then take out from freezer and add pumpkin filling and freeze for 10-15 mins.
The crust is pre bake for a total of 22 mins so crust is not cooked all the way.
Thank you so much for sharing the recipe! That all sounds like it would work with this crust. Let me know how it goes! 🙂
How long should I prebake it&what oven temp?
The baking method that you mentioned from the other site sounds like it would work fine to pre-bake this pie as well, just keep it in the center of the oven and not too high up so you don’t scorch the edges.
Hi Natasha, would I be able to use this pie crust to make a
3 in 1 pie? The bottom layer is cheesecake then pumpkin then pecan. The pie crust has to be pre cooked then after cheesecake filling is filled it’s put in the freezer for 15 mins then add the pumpkin filling and freeze another 15 then add the pecan topping on top of the pumpkin. Thanks
You could, but you probably would want to weight down the crust and pre-bake it. If you don’t weight it down, it will bubble up and become mis-shaped. Your pie sounds so yummy! Is it a no-bake cheesecake filling and pumpkin filling?
Can you share how to keep the dough in a circle form when rolling it out? Mine created big crags and gaps as I rolled, even though it started as a ball.
Hi Jess,
Did the dough seem to dry or too sticky?
This crust is amazing for chicken pot pie.
So happy I came across it, thanks for sharing it.
Ooh brilliant! That’s making me hungry! I love chicken pot pie!
Hi Natasha,
Let me start out by saying I love your simple and easily explained recipes and the pictures of each step just makes it so much easier. You just click amazingly beautiful pictures of your food.
I was wondering if I should freeze the cream cheese for this recipe as the refrigerated one I open is never as hard as butter to cut it into cubes as you have shown in your step. I love cream cheese and want to try more recipes where I can use it. Will wait for your reply to try this one.
Thanks
Vrinda
Thank you so much for your sweet compliments :). It doesn’t have to be frozen for this recipe. I just used a sharp knife to cut through the cream cheese. It’s perfectly ok if the cream cheese cubes aren’t perfect. Your pastry crust will still be just as good 🙂
How can i make pie crust without the food processor?
Do you have a dough cutter? That’s probably the easiest way. You can use a knife to cut the butter into the flour but that sounds like a pain in the rear. Here’s what I like to use: OXO Good Grips Dough Blender with Blades
I read on a russian website somewhere that you can shred the cold butter into to the flour and it will give the same effect.
Also I have a question if you can make little hand pies with this crust? What do you think?
You could do it that way. I don’t see why not, but you want the butter to cut into the flour. I think you could make little hand pies with this crust. This dough recipe would work well for a galette also.
This pie crust was delicious! I used your recipe to the letter as far as ingredients and it was the best and most flavorful and flaky pie crust I’ve ever had! I did use a pastry cutter instead of the food processor though. Thank you for this recipe! I tried Cook’s Illustrated and my crust was still not flaky or very flavorful. Your recipe is wonderful and will be my go-to recipe for pie crust from now on!
That’s awesome! Thank you so much for the great review 🙂
Does this crust freeze for any length of time?
To be honest, I’ve never tried to freeze it so I can’t give you a good answer for that. It would be a good experiment. I’ve refrigerated it but haven’t tried freezing…
I want to make this for thanksgiving but I only have half and half not heavy whipping cream , will it still work do you think?
I really haven’t experimented with half and half. I’d probably add slightly less if I were to test it out. Start with half the amount and add more to get the right consistency. Let me know how it goes!
Wow, now, just now I realize how simple it is to make a pie crust! I been avoiding it all these years thinking its a complicated process… Cant wait to try! Im still trying to figure out if all your goodies are really easy to make or u just sooo good at decribing it in simple language…(I think its u) And ofcourse all the pictures help 🙂
Thank you Liya. What a great complement! You are so nice. Yes, making pie crust is not as complicated as it seems.
Sounds like a great recipe. I’ve always been partial to a cream cheese dough, since I make so many other goodies with it. I’ll have to try this recipe next time I make a pie.
Thanks Olga. It was a nice little addition to this pie crust. 🙂
This looks great! I’ve only ever made pie crust with butter or oil before, but not with cream cheese. Can’t wait to try it!
I think you’ll love it!! 🙂
is it three or two tablespoons of heavy whipping cream???
Three. Sorry, I fixed the typo. Thanks Masha! 🙂
Sounds wonderful, can’t wait to try this! Thanks for another great recipe.
You are welcome, let me know how it turns out :).