Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (2024)

Many sweet and savory pie recipes require pre-baking or "blind baking" a crust. No one really knows where the term got its name, but "blind" baking a crust means baking it without a filling.

Why Blind Bake a Crust?

Some pie and tart recipes have fillings that are not cooked at all, and need to be put into a fully cooked pie shell.

Some recipes like quiches recommend partially cooked pie shells because the baking time wouldn't be long enough to fully cook the dough otherwise.

Pre-baking a crust can ensure that your pie or tart crust will be fully baked and browned, and not soggy.

Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (1)

Pre-Baking a Store-Bought Crust

Are you using a homemade pie crust? Or a store bought frozen crust? Most store-bought frozen crusts have much less dough in them than a typical homemade crust, so they'll brown much faster than a homemade crust.

If you are pre-baking a store-bought frozen packaged crust, I recommend following the directions on the package for how to pre-bake that particular crust. Most instructions will have you defrost the crust, prick the bottom of the crust all over with the tines of a fork, and bake at 375°F to 450°F for 10 to 12 minutes.

Pre-baking a homemade crust is an entirely different matter, as homemade crusts can have twice as much dough and a higher proportion of fat than store-bought crusts.

How to Blind Bake a Homemade Crust

The most challenging issue you encounter when pre-baking a homemade crust is slumping sides. Homemade crusts especially have a high fat content. The fat melts when heated in the oven, and unless there is a filling to prop up the sides of the pie crust, it can slump.

Another issue is billowing air pockets in the center. If you don't blind bake with weights, or poke holes into the bottom of the crust, the bottom of the crust can puff up.

For years I pre-baked crusts the way most people did, about 15 minutes at a high baking temperature using foil or parchment and pie weights, then removing the pie weights and foil, poking the bottom of the crust with the tines of a fork, and continuing to bake for 20 minutes, uncovered.

Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (2)

This method works, but I've always found it a bit fussy. And even when you poke the bottom of the crust all over with little holes, sometimes you still get air pockets bubbling up at the bottom.

Discovering a Better Method

I have recently starting using a method I learned from Stella Parks at Serious Eats that consistently gives good results, even with hard-to-blind-bake crusts such as my no-fail sour cream pie crust.

Stella advocates lining a frozen crust with foil, filling with pie weights, and then baking at an even 350°F temperature for the entirety of the baking time. No removing of the pie weights mid way, no poking the bottom with a fork.

It works! The pressure of the pie weights keeps the bottom of the crust from billowing up, and the sides from slumping too much.

Sugar, Rice, or Beans for Pie Weights

Another thing that Stella recommends is using sugar for pie weights instead of beans or other weights. Why sugar? Because of its small granular size, sugar distributes the weight more evenly against the sides of the crust.

Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (3)

You might think the sugar would melt, but it's not in the oven long enough to reach its melting point. You can actually re-use the sugar in baking. In fact, cooking the sugar this way lightly caramelizes it, giving it more flavor.

You can also easily use uncooked rice or dry beans. I've extensively tested all three; they all work. I have found that sugar does give consistently better results, and helps keep the sides in place better.

Tips for Blind Baking Success

  • Use a dough that will pre-bake well. A dough that has a ratio of 1 cup of flour to 4 ounces of fat (1 stick of butter) is a high fat ratio dough and is more likely to slump when pre-baked. A dough that has a ratio of 1 1/4 cups of flour to 4 ounces of fat will have better structure and will slump less. (See our All-Butter Crust recipe.)
  • Roll out your dough a little bit wider than usual, so you can crimp the edges in the pie dish a little taller than usual. If the edges are taller or wider to begin with, they'll have more room to shrink.
  • Freeze the un-cooked pie crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour, before blind-baking. If the crust is frozen when it goes into the hot oven, the outside edges will have more of a chance to set before the fat melts.
  • Line the crust with heavy duty foil. Heavy duty foil is less likely to tear than regular foil when you are forming it in the crust or when you are removing it and the pie weights. I've used parchment, but it doesn't mold to the edges of the the crust the way foil can.
  • Use sugar for pie weights. Dry beans and rice also work, but sugar works even better, especially if you are using a dough that is higher in fat content like my favorite no-fail sour cream pie crust.
  • Fill the weights to the top, they'll hold pressure agains the sides of the pie better.

Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (4)

Reuse Your Baked Sugar

If you use sugar as a pie weight, you'll be left with about 4 cups of lightly caramelized sugar granules which you can (and should!) easily reuse. Let the sugar cool to room temperature, run it through a food processor to break up any lumps, then store it in a cool, dry place like any other granulated sugar. Use it to make sugar cookies!

Pie Dough by Hand

Many of our pie recipes call for mixing the ingredients in a food processor. Good news! If you don't have a food processor, try our handmade pie crust recipe (no special equipment needed).

How to Make Pie Dough by HandGET THE RECIPE:

From the Editors Of Simply Recipes

How to Blind Bake a Pie Crust

Prep Time5 mins

Cook Time60 mins

Total Time65 mins

Yield1 pie crust

If you know you are making a crust that will be pre-baked, form the edges of the dough higher than usual, above the edge of the pie pan.

Ingredients

  • 1 frozenhomemade pie crust

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F:

    Make sure you are starting with a frozen pie crust, not defrosted. Your pie crust should been in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour.

  2. Line the inside of the frozen pie crust with foil:

    Use heavy duty aluminum foil, pressing the foil against the sides and bottom of the crust, allowing the foil to extend by a couple of inches on two opposing sides.

    Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (5)

    Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (6)

    Stick-free heavy duty foil works well for this, to help keep the crust from sticking to the foil when you remove it. You may need two sheets of foil to get full coverage.

  3. Fill the pie crust with pie weights:

    Fill the pie crust to the top with pie weights. You can use ceramic weights, dry beans, rice, or white sugar. Sugar works well because of its small granule size; it distributes the weight more evenly against the crust. (Baking the sugar this way also lightly caramelizes it, making it even more flavorful if you want to use it later for baking recipes.)

    Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (7)

    Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (8)

  4. Bake:

    For a pie that you will cook further, like a quiche, bake the crust until it's dry and just beginning to brown, but still pale in color, 45-50 minutes. For a pie that will need no further baking, like a chocolate cream pie, bake the crust until it's evenly browned and crisp-looking, 60 to 75 minutes.

  5. Remove from oven:

    Remove the pie shell from the oven. Using the excess foil on 2 sides of the pie shell, lift out the pie weights from the pie shell. Let the pie weights cool. Store them for future use.

    Did you love the recipe? Give us some stars and leave a comment below!

    Simple Tip!

    When baking a pie with your pre-baked pie crust, I recommend protecting the rim from getting over-baked with aluminum foil or a pie rim protector.

  • Pie Crusts
Blind Baking a Pie Crust Might Sound Scary―It's Anything But (2024)

FAQs

What should pie crust look like after blind baking? ›

You want it to look dry and flaky, but still pale. For a fully baked crust, cook until the bottom turns a light golden color. The whole process won't take more than 15 or 20 minutes.

At what temperature do you blind bake a pie crust? ›

Chill the crust for 30 minutes; this will solidify the fat, which helps prevent shrinkage. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 20 minutes. Remove the pie from the oven, and lift out the paper and weights. Prick the bottom of the crust all over with a fork, to prevent bubbles.

How do you prevent a blind crust from puffing up during baking? ›

Pie weights are little weights used to fill the inside of the blind baked pie crust, to help stop the middle puffing up in the oven. You line the chilled pie crust with crumpled parchment paper, then fill the crust up to the edges of the crimps using pie weights.

What happens if you don't blind bake a crust? ›

Some recipes like quiches recommend partially cooked pie shells because the baking time wouldn't be long enough to fully cook the dough otherwise. Pre-baking a crust can ensure that your pie or tart crust will be fully baked and browned, and not soggy.

How do you seal a blind baked pie crust? ›

To provide a protective seal between the blind baked pastry and a wet filling, so the pastry won't turn soggy, you can brush the pastry with lightly beaten egg white and return it to the oven for 3–4 minutes. This will also seal any very small holes.

Why did my pie crust shrink when I blind baked it? ›

Any number of things can contribute to a slumping crust. Maybe your recipe uses an extra-high amount of shortening or butter, or you rolled the crust too vigorously, or you didn't let it rest and chill before baking. Perhaps you used the wrong size pan, or not enough filling.

Can I blind bake without weights? ›

If you don't have pie weights, you could use something similar like pennies, dry beans, dry rice, or even sugar. I don't recommend blind baking your crust without anything to weigh it down though, because it will likely lose its shape, bubble, and shrink.

Can you use aluminum foil to blind bake crust? ›

What's better: aluminum foil or parchment paper for blind baking pie crust? The unbaked pie needs to be layered with something to hold the pie weights. You can use either foil or parchment. I find that foil can mold better to the shape of the pie, further preventing any puffy parts or slipping sides.

Can I use pasta to blind bake? ›

It's not recommended to blind bake without any weight, because the pastry will puff up and it won't cook evenly if there's nothing holding it down. But if you don't have traditional baking beads, you can use dry rice, pasta, beans or even sugar! Anything that's heavy enough to hold down a piece of baking paper.

Do you grease pan before blind baking? ›

BLIND BAKING BRILLIANCE

Add the dough straight to your tin. There is no need to grease the tin before you line it with pastry – the high butter content in the pastry will naturally stop it from sticking.

Do you let pastry cool after blind baking? ›

Pastry of all kinds needs to be left to rest in a cool place for at least 15 minutes. This allows the fat to resolidify after handling, making the pastry easier to work with and ensuring that it will hold its shape during the early stages of cooking.

Should I pre-bake my pie crust for pumpkin pie? ›

To avoid a soggy crust, I blind bake it until it's thoroughly dry before adding the filling. To prevent those unsightly cracks in the filling, I've tweaked the traditional recipe: a bit of flour for stability, replacing some whole eggs with yolks for richness, and baking at a low temperature for even cooking.

How long to prebake pie crust at 350? ›

If your recipe doesn't have instructions and you're wondering how long to pre bake the pie, here's what I do: I pre bake the prepped pie crust at 350°F. If the crust is homemade from scratch, I pre bake for 35 minutes. If the crust is store-bought, I pre bake for 30 minutes.

Should pie crust be cold before blind baking? ›

For the best results, make sure that your crust is extremely cold before baking; this will help prevent shrinking. I like to line my crust with the parchment and weights and then refrigerate (or freeze) it for at least an hour before baking to make sure to give the crust the best chance possible.

Should you prebake the bottom crust of a cherry pie? ›

You do not need to par-bake or blind bake this bottom pie crust. Reducing the filling's juice on the stove keeps excess liquid off the bottom pie dough, plus we bake the pie for long enough that the bottom crust sufficiently cooks through.

What should cooked pie crust look like? ›

Step 4: Bake pie crust, fully or partially

The edges of the crust should appear completely baked and have just started to turn golden brown. (Many tutorials I've read only say to bake the crust for 10-15 minutes, but in my experience that's not nearly long enough.

When should pie weights be removed from a blind baked pie crust? ›

Some bakers skip the pie weights and just dock the pie crust from the beginning, but I've never had luck this way. The sides of my pie crust still shrink down. So I always use pie weights, remove them after the edges begin to turn brown, dock the crust with a fork, then return it to the oven so the bottom cooks.

What color should cooked pie crust be? ›

After about 10 to 15 minutes at 425 F, lower your oven to 350 F and allow the pastry to continue baking until evenly golden-brown. Time: Allow your pie crust to bake all the way through. Most people pull pies out of the oven at the first sign of browning. Pie dough should be a deep golden-brown, not pale in color.

How do you know if your pie crust is too dry? ›

Once mixed, your dough should stick together when you pinch it between your fingers. If it doesn't, you need to add more moisture. Even if you think your pie dough resembles the Sahara desert, show some restraint when adding more water. A teaspoon at a time is all you need.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Wyatt Volkman LLD

Last Updated:

Views: 6657

Rating: 4.6 / 5 (66 voted)

Reviews: 89% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Wyatt Volkman LLD

Birthday: 1992-02-16

Address: Suite 851 78549 Lubowitz Well, Wardside, TX 98080-8615

Phone: +67618977178100

Job: Manufacturing Director

Hobby: Running, Mountaineering, Inline skating, Writing, Baton twirling, Computer programming, Stone skipping

Introduction: My name is Wyatt Volkman LLD, I am a handsome, rich, comfortable, lively, zealous, graceful, gifted person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.