“Cut In” Meaning in Cooking: Tools, How To, and Tips

When making dough or pastries, you often have to mix the flour and shortening or butter by “cutting in.” To cut in means to incorporate butter or shortening into flour by using a pastry blender, often called a pastry cutter or dough cutter. A pastry blender a rounded loop of metal that separates into blades or heavy wires on one side and a handle on the other. Baking recipes often instruct you to ‘cut the butter into the flour,’ and the best way to do so is using this tool, although two knives can also be used. Read on to find out how to cut in butter and shortening to flour or other dry ingredients. 

Quick Guide: How to Cut in Butter With Flour

• Put flour in a medium or large metal bowl
• Cut the cold and firm butter into small pieces and toss the pieces together with the flour (do not soften butter). 
• Use the metal blades of a pastry cutter (pastry blender) to press down into the butter pieces and flour, over and over. 
• While “cutting,” periodically mix the flour and butter around so that you can better cut any butter pieces that are on the edge. 
• Keep pressing and mixing until the butter gets cut into finer and finer pea-like pieces and bread-crumb-like pieces, all coated with flour. 
• After all the butter has become small crumbs and is thoroughly mixed with the flour, the mixture can be formed into a dough along with any liquid ingredients (ice water, milk, or buttermilk) that the recipe specifies. 

Cutting In Tips

• To keep the butter and flour mixture chilled, the metal bowl (and even the flour) can be chilled in the refrigerator in advance. 
• If the mixture becomes too warm while cutting in, you can place it in the freezer for a few minutes to chill the butter again.
• Warm pie dough will not turn out flaky if it gets too warm. Instead, it may have a dense, tough, or oily texture, so if, after you cut in and form the dough, if it is too warm, chill it in the refrigerator before rolling out to ensure that it is chilled enough. 
• If desired, you can place the metal dough bowl into a larger metal bowl with ice to keep the mixture cool. 

🎂Think “sifting together dry ingredients” is a waste of time? You’re not alone. And, you are not wrong! Find out why this common baking instruction is unnecessary!

Read More: Do You Really Need to Sift Together Dry Ingredients for Baking?

Why Cut In? Why Not Use Your Fingers?

When making pie dough and similar pastries, as well as some cookies, it is best to keep the dough as cold as possible while working with it. For recipes that call for vegetable shortening or lard, this is not as necessary, as these ingredients have a higher range of plasticity in warm temperatures. It is much better to cut in butter, since butter softens and melts at a lower temperature than shortening. The metal blades of the pastry cutter allow you to mix the butter with the flour without warming up the butter and compromising the dough. 

For cutting in to work properly, the butter must be cold and firm. After all the butter has become small crumbs and is thoroughly mixed with the flour, it can be formed into a dough. Sometimes, according to the recipe, liquid ingredients are added. When making pie crust, ice water is added. When making biscuits, milk or buttermilk is added.

When the resulting dough is cooked, the small pieces of fat are still solid, surrounded by flour. When they heat and then melt, this results in little pockets inside the dough, creating flaky layers. If the butter were allowed to soften, it would melt into the dough instead of forming these pockets. This would result in a less flaky, dense, though, and potentially oily pie crust or biscuit. The same is true of any other pastry. For pie crust, especially, cold butter is a must. 

How to Cut in Using Two Knives

• To cut butter into flour using two knives, follow the steps above to prepare the flour and butter (or shortening).
• Hold a knife in each hand and cut across the butter and flour mixture in opposite directions, keeping the knife blades close together as they cross one another.
• Continue “cutting” with the knives until the flour and butter mixture resembles very small crumbs, as in the instructions above.

Note: Cutting in with knives is extremely tedious and time-consuming. There will be more time for the dough mixture to warm up. Therefore, it is even more important that the butter, bowl, and even flour be chilled. Utilizing the ice method described above would be helpful, but difficult since you won’t have a free hand to hold the dough bowl steady. It’s best to use a pastry cutter. They are inexpensive and readily available.