How to Blind Bake a Pie Crust

A lot of pie recipes require you to blind bake your pie crust before you assemble the pie. But how do you actually do it? Not to fear, I can show you how!

For some more great pie-making tips, why not learn how to make your own Egg Wash? Or learn how to make chess pie using a blind-baked crust!

How to Blind Bake a Pie Crust

Blind baking is one of the most useful tricks of a pie baker, especially when baking at home, thanks to the myriad different types of pies there are.

Some need extremely long cook times, which generally don’t need a blind-baked pie crust, whereas others, such as a lot of fruit pies, will basically fall apart without blind baking.

The reason we do it is to give the pie crust some time in the oven on its own to harden, as well as getting some of the heat from the oven without the typically cold pie filling sitting on top of it. If you skipped the blind bake step in most recipes, you would end up with a half-cooked, soggy pie bottom, which is something that nobody in their right mind would want.    

Ingredients For How to Blind Bake a Pie Crust

Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts so that you know exactly what to buy for this recipe.

• Pie crust

• Pie plate

• Dry rice dried beans as pie weights

Instructions On How To Blind Bake a Pie Crust

• Preheat your oven to 400°F.

• Cut a circle of parchment paper that is large enough to fit into a 9-inch pie plate and come up the edges as well.

• Roll out a pie crust

• Place your rolled-out pie crust in the pie plate and crimp the edge.

• Line, the pie crust with the parchment circle.

• Gently add the pie weights into the pan, filling it up 1/2 of the way up the sides of the pie plate.

• Chill the pie for 10 minutes in the fridge. And then place in the oven and bake at 400 Fahrenheit

• Bake until the edges of the pie are just turning golden brown

• Remove the crust from the oven and remove the pie weights and the paper.

• If you’ll be baking the crust once it’s filled, return the pie to the oven and bake the crust until the bottom is just beginning to color, around another 6 to 8 minutes.

• If you’re making a cream pie or refrigerated pie, you must bake it until the entire crust is golden brown, about 15 minutes longer.

• Remove and cool completely, then use in your recipe as directed.

How Do You Crimp The Edges Of The Pie Crust?

Crimping the edges of a pie crust is often one of the trickiest parts of making a good pie, as getting those pretty crenulations is surprisingly hard to do at home.

For the home baker, there are two methods you can use to get picture-perfect crimped edges: two forks or two fingers.

To use the fork method, you just take two forks and place one onto the pie crust lip, with the back of the tines pressing into the pastry that hangs over the edges of the pie plate.

Using the other fork, you slot the tines into the gaps made by the first fork, pushing gently so as to not tear the pie crust but firmly enough so that the pie crimps together.

You repeat this movement all around the edge of the pie, gradually giving you pretty crimp all around the edges of your pie.

To use your fingers, you take your index finger and the thumb of one hand and press them together with a slight gap in-between them, almost like you were preparing to pinch someone.

You then lightly pinch one part of the pie crust and, using the index finger of your other hand, press the pie dough in-between your finger and thumb.

Repeating all around the pie gives you decent crimping that might not be technically perfect but serves well enough and still looks really good once it has finished baking.

What Is The Point Of The Pie Weights?

Pie weights are a very common addition to blind baking a pie crust, and to the inexperienced eye, they might seem pretty strange.

Pie weights are typically either a whole lot of dried beans or rice, or they are dedicated pie weights that are usually made from inert stone that doesn’t chip easily.

The pie weights are really important because they help to weigh down the center of the pie crust in the oven as you blind bake it.

If you didn’t use pie weights, the steam from underneath the pie dough would push the center of the pie crust upwards, creating an uneven texture and possibly even making little cracks and tears that your filling would eventually leak out of.

Just make sure that you put some parchment paper down first! Otherwise, your pie weights will end up getting baked into the crust and will become a part of your pie irreparably, whether you want them to or not.

Looking for more delicious Pie recipes? Try these out:

• Campfire Cherry Hand Pies

• Blueberry Pie

• Lemon Meringue Pie

Hope this helps you in the kitchen! Happy baking!

Love,

Karlynn

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