Julia Child relied on fraisage, a classic French technique, to get the flakiest pastry and pie dough. It doesn't require any special skill or equipment—just your hands!
Julia Child’s Technique for the Flakiest Pie Crust
Published on Jun. 09, 2025
I can’t tell you how many times someone has told me that making pie terrifies them. After all, if it were difficult, we wouldn’t have the saying, “easy as pie.” All you need is flour, some kind of fat (preferably butter), cold water, and boom, you have pie! The scary part for many is turning those few ingredients into a tender, flaky pie crust. That’s when Julia Child enters the chat.
Julia’s sing-song voice and easy instructions can inspire anyone to make anything. We look to her for many classic French recipes, like coq au vin and chocolate mousse. One of the most classic methods she discusses in Mastering the Art of French Cooking is fraisage, a way of smearing butter into flour to make the ultimate pâte brisée—a dough that turns into a flaky crust for pies, pastries and desserts. Once you try it, you may never go back.
What is fraisage?
Fraisage is a French technique in pastry making in which you smear butter into the flour with the heel of your hand on the countertop. The goal is to spread long sheets of butter throughout the flour. When the dough bakes, moisture in the butter turns into steam, creating longer pastry flakes. French bakers have used the fraisage method since at least the 19th century and probably earlier.
In order for pastries to be tender and flaky, there can’t be too much gluten in the dough. Smearing the butter with your hand means less kneading, which means less gluten formation. Once you get the hang of it, you can use this method for pie crusts, scones, biscuits, breads—anything where you cut butter into flour for a flaky result.
How to Use Fraisage to Make Pie Crust
Unlike making a classic butter pie dough, where you cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter (or two knives, a food processor or your hands) in order to form pea-size pieces of butter, fraisage is done by flattening flour-coated pieces of butter.
To use fraisage to make a pie crust, whisk the dry ingredients per the instructions. Add the cold 1/2-inch butter chunks, toss them until they’re coated with flour, then pinch each piece with your fingers until they’re flat. Add the ice-cold water per the recipe, starting with a small amount and adding more as needed, and stir lightly until it just holds together. It won’t be fully mixed, and it’s okay to have some dry bits of flour. It should look a bit shaggy.
Here’s where the fun comes in: Dump the shaggy mass onto the countertop. Using the heel of your hand, push the dough away from you, smearing the butter into long shreds in the flour. Use a bench knife or scraper and flip the dough back onto itself, and continue smearing the butter shreds. It’s ready when the fat looks fully incorporated into the dough; it should still be shaggy but more cohesive and smooth. You should still see some butter shreds throughout.
Form the dough into a disc, wrap it with storage wrap, and chill it for at least 30 minutes or until you’re ready to use it.
If you prefer a pie dough made with shortening and butter, there is no need to fraisage the shortening; it doesn’t contain water, so you don’t have to smear it. Just mix it in with the dry ingredients and smear in the butter on the counter as instructed.
Is fraisage worth it?
After learning about the fraisage method in a scone-making class, I couldn’t wait to try it on my pies. Flattening small pieces of butter with my fingers and smearing those flakes into the flour on the counter intrigued me. It’s tangible—almost meditative. If you like the process of baking, fraisage is very much a technique for you.
When I tried it with my pie dough, I got lovely big flakes. The key is not to overwork the dough, which is the mantra for making any pie. You don’t want to overmix it and create gluten; if you do, you’ll get a tougher pie crust. You just want to smear the butter and fold it over until it all comes together.
Fraisage is easier and more hands-on than my usual pie dough process, by which I use a food processor for the dry ingredients and half the cold butter to get pea-size chunks, add water, grate the rest of the cold butter into the mix, and pull it together until I get a cohesive, slightly shaggy mass. My version also creates small sheets of butter, but fraisage makes them a bit bigger, which means bigger flakes in the baked crust. Julia was right—again!
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