Should i blind bake pie crust

This step-by-step guide is all you need! So, you want to learn about blind baking pie crust? That means you probably have something delicious in the works. And while this process may seem mildly intimidating the first time around—I promise, it's pretty straightforward once you get into it.

Blind baking simply refers to baking a pie crust, partially or completely, without filling in it. Easy enough right? The only catch is that if you're using pastry dough for your pie versus a crumb crust , you can't just slide the pie into the oven as-is. Because of the structural makeup of pie dough, if you've made it well, you're going to have pockets of steam coming to life during the baking process—this is ultimately what leaves you with those wonderful flakey layers. However, if there's no filling in your pie shell to weigh it down, and help the sides uphold their architectural integrity, this process can cause your pie dough to puff up, shrink, and slump.

Fortunately, avoiding this deformed fate is easy. You just have to weigh the shell with a temporary filling as it bakes, allowing the dough to crisp up and hold its shape. Generally, you'll want to blind bake a pie crust destined to hold a filling that requires little to no oven time itself.

For example, a pie with a custard-based filling that's cooked on the stovetop, like our Chocolate Cream Pie , needs a pie shell that's already entirely baked and ready to go. Or, take for example, a key lime pie. This pie's filling typically only needs about 15 minutes to bake, so you'll probably want to give the crust a little bit of a head start without it.

Some bakers also like to partially bake the crusts they're using to hold fruit fillings like apple or berry in order to prevent the fruit's juicy filling from soaking into the soft, raw pie dough—yielding a soggy crust once completely baked.

This is also a common approach when it comes to baking a savory quiche. Any variety of pie crust you may wish to use can be blind baked. But par-baking technically refers to a partial blind bake of the crust, meaning that you only partially bake the pie crust instead of a full blind bake, which means that the crust is entirely baked without the filling.

A pie crust should be fully blind-baked if the filling is of the no-bake variety. Meaning you bake the pie crust entirely, and then fill it with something, such as chocolate pudding or vanilla pudding. A pie crust might be partially blind-baked first when it is intended to be filled with a pie filling that is baked at a low temperature, such as a quiche.

I find that there are only a few minutes difference in terms of baking time between these two baking distinctions. For a partial blind bake, I generally look to make sure the pie crust isn't at all raw, in that it's fully cooked, but just barely.

For a full blind bake I look to see that the crust is flaky with a light golden color in the middle of the pie crust. The reason for this is because a pie crust, at least a classic butter pie crust, needs a long baking time at a high temperature in order to be fully baked through. While the process for blind-baking is nearly identical for all pie crusts, what does change is the oven temperature and the length of time needed to blind bake.

Though, it will need to be baked for longer to ensure it's fully baked through. The photos in this post are of a whole wheat pie crust. A crumb crust, such as a graham cracker crust, does not act the same way as a raw flour pie crust, but still can be blind baked to ensure it is crisp and that it holds together. You don't need a lot of tools, and in fact, I own nothing special for this. Some people like to use specially purchased pie weights , but I don't find them as helpful as using dried rice and beans.

I like to use dried rice and beans because they are smaller, and can really pack into small crevices and do a great job holding up the edges of the crust so they don't sink down.

I keep the same rice and beans for many years and reuse them to blind bake pie crusts. Occasionally they will get too oily and they will need to be replaced. And over the years I add to the collection of blind baking rice and beans as needed, and by the time I am ready to replace the batch I've been holding on to there are all different types of dried legumes and grains included in them.

I've used everything from dried peas, to quinoa to forbidden rice. So now you know why and what types of pies to blind bake, let's talk about the important steps needed to actually do it! A: This happens for a few reasons. The first possibility is that your pie crust wasn't chilled enough. If the butter is too soft, your crust will melt before it has a chance to actually bake.

Pie crusts must be chilled before baking. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Featured Video. Save It Print. Prep Time 30 mins. Cook Time 50 mins. Total Time 80 mins.

Yield 1 pie crust. Line the inside of the frozen pie crust with foil:. Fill the pie crust with pie weights:. Remove from oven:.

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