How to Blind Bake

Real talk:  I haven’t made a ton of single pie crust pies, like buttermilk pie, chess, pecan, pumpkin or sweet potato pies.  I’m not sure why, but here we are. 

What is “Blind Baking”?

Blind Baking is basically pre-baking a pie crust without it’s filling.   Some pie fillings don’t require baking, so you need to bake the crust completely.  In other cases, you bake it for a while fill the crust with a custard-like filling (think sweet potato or pumpkin) and then you continue baking. 

Problems with Blind Baking: 

1.  The crust shrinks.  
2. The crust bubbles up. 
3. The aluminum Foil sticks to the crust.  

The KEY to a perfect blind baked crust is TEMPERATURE.  

Freezing the pie crust before blind baking will solve problems 1 and 3.  No more shrinking pie crust and prevents the butter in the crust from melting too fast causing the foil to stick.  Simple. 

Bake your crust on HIGH heat. 425ºF for 25 to 30 minutes for pie that needs to continue baking (think Sweet Potato) or 45 minutes for a “no-bake” pie. 

Conventional wisdom says that you need pie weights or beans to weigh down the crust.  My most successful blind baked crust used sugar. Plain white sugar that you already have in your pantry.  The sugar is fine enough that it gets in all of the nooks and crannies. Not only do you end up with a crust that is without bubbles, but the sides of the crust have nowhere to shrink.  Perfection.