How to Blind Bake Pie Crust
A pastry chef explains the difference between blind baking and par baking, shows you how to blind bake pie crust, and when to use each!
Servings: 12 Servings
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon granulated sugar
- 4 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter cubed, cold
- 1 ¼ oz cold water as much or as little as needed
Instructions
- Use any of the 5 methods in this all butter pie crust recipe tutorial to prepare you pie crust or use store bought. You can also make any of these pie crust recipes.
- Lightly flour a flat surface, the top of the dough, and a rolling pin.
- Roll the dough out to about 1/8th inch thickness in as close to a circle as possible. Chill for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350°F convection or 375°F conventional.
- Gently place pie dough into pie dish and fold the dough to fit it flush to the bottom and sides allowing any excess dough to overhang the edges. Chill 30 minutes.
- Trim any dough that is hanging over in excess of 1 inch. Roll under tightly by pressing and rolling the dough between your thumb and first two fingers. Be sure to roll tightly to avoid it popping open in the oven.
- Crimp or flute the edges or mark with the tines of a fork. If this too long enough for the dough to no longer feel cool to the touch, chill it again for 15-30 minutes.
- Line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights, beans or rice.
- Bake crust in preheated oven for 12-20 minutes or until the bottom crust begins to brown. This is the par-baked stage! If you are going to continue baking the crust with filling, you are done! Depending on your filling you can use immediately or allow the crust to cool before filling.
- To finish blind baking the pie crust, remove the parchment and weights, beans or rice. Continue baking for 8-15 minutes or until the bottom and edges have turned a nice golden brown. Allow to cool before filling.
Video
Notes
Yield – The recipe as written above makes enough for a single crust pie. This is my all butter pie crust recipe. There are additional instructions in that post.
Presentation – Leaving too much dough around the edges will make the edge too fat and it will not bake at the same rate as the rest of the crust resulting in an underbaked center.
Technique – I find that rice isn’t heavy enough to completely prevent the crust from puffing and that pie weights are too heavy and keep the dough from rising enough to make a flaky crust. I cool and reuse the same beans every time. You can use any beans that you’d like!
Storage – Store partially or fully blind baked pie crust wrapped at room temperature for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.
Presentation – Leaving too much dough around the edges will make the edge too fat and it will not bake at the same rate as the rest of the crust resulting in an underbaked center.
Technique – I find that rice isn’t heavy enough to completely prevent the crust from puffing and that pie weights are too heavy and keep the dough from rising enough to make a flaky crust. I cool and reuse the same beans every time. You can use any beans that you’d like!
Storage – Store partially or fully blind baked pie crust wrapped at room temperature for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
Calories: 76kcal | Carbohydrates: 8g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 11mg | Sodium: 98mg | Potassium: 12mg | Fiber: 0.3g | Sugar: 0.2g | Vitamin A: 131IU | Calcium: 3mg | Iron: 0.5mg