Well, few of us are strangers to the disappointing soggy pie-crust base that can result from recipes that contain very wet fillings. Quiche and certain fruit pies are particularly vulnerable to this problem. While you might be able to get away with a slightly soggy base, serving up a pie where the crust still feels like dough or which doesn’t even hold together is inexcusable. It is worth making the effort therefore to learn and practice blind baking when it is called for in a recipe, to guarantee great results every time. How do I blind bake? This is especially important if you are blind baking the crust, as you want to make sure that the entire crust is cooked through before adding the filling. If you don’t have any sugar on hand, another option is to use dried peas as replacements for blind baking beans.

They keep the dough or batter from puffing up while it bakes and ensures that when you fill it with your delicious filling, it’ll come out even and professional-looking.A third and quite elegant method of blind baking is to use a second, smaller pie form as your weight. This should sit on top of your paper or foil, providing a heavy and flat weight to keep your dough in place.

Nuts work well as an alternative to baking beans because they provide good weight and texture, which will help keep your crust from shrinking in on itself and becoming soggy. After you blind bake and add the filling, you then put the top crust on. how do you crimp it when the bottom crust is already crisp. It does prevent the soggy bottom but then I don't know how to finish the pie. Any help would be appreciated. Or perhaps you do not want to bake your filling at all – from chocolate pudding to fresh fruit tarts, there are many occasions when a cold filling is added to a pre-baked crust. Can I skip blind baking? Blind baking pastry for a showstopping dessert? Create golden pastry using a basic egg or milk wash. They’re made out of dried pulses like peas or lentils (hence the name), and they have a similar texture and weight as regular baking beans do when they’re dried out.You may have come across this term in recipe books time and time again, but still you’re not quite sure what it means. Or perhaps you’ve tried it once or twice, and still haven’t got that perfect pie crust that you were hoping for. Trim off any excess pastry that’s hanging over the edges of the tin. You can use your rolling pin to help you do this – simply press it down on the edges so the excess is sliced off. Ready to learn how to blind bake pastry? Here we’ll take you through shortcrust pastry blind baking – a technique you can use for dozens of different sweet and savoury recipes.