Lots of sweet and savory pie recipes require pre-baking a crust. Some call it blind baking, but it merely means baking an empty pie crust. It is essential to learn How long do you bake a pie crust unfilled to avoid wasted baking ingredients.
Considering how long do you bake a pie crust unfilled is important when you’re making a nice pie, especially with an unbaked filling, like a cream pie. The ideal baking time will make your pie crust perfectly pre-baked. So, how long do you bake a pie crust unfilled? Let’s find out in this article.
Why Bake an Empty Pie Crust?
Some pies have fillings that are not cooked at all, and need to be put into a fully baked pie shell, and are ready to serve. Some recipes like tarts recommend partially cooked pie shells because the baking time wouldn’t be long enough to cook the dough otherwise thoroughly. Pre-baking a crust is needed to ensure that your pie or tart crust will be fully baked and browned, and not moist.
Higher temperatures cause the gluten proteins in the flour to tighten up, but if they are heated more gently, they tend to shrink less. Other factors that can cause shrinkage are overhandling the dough and not chilling the dough appropriately before baking. But how long do you bake a pie crust unfilled?
Pre-Baking a Store-bought Crust
Are you going to use a homemade pie crust or a frozen crust that is bought from a store? Most frozen crusts that you can buy have much less dough in them than a typical homemade crust, which makes them brown much faster compared to a homemade crust.
If you are pre-baking a store-bought frozen packaged crust, follow the directions on the package on how to pre-bake that crust. Generally, most instructions will tell you to defrost the crust, prick the bottom of the crust all over with the use of a fork, and eventually bake at 375°F to 450°F for 10 to 12 minutes.
To answer how long do you bake a pie crust unfilled differs when we talk about pre-baking a homemade crust because homemade crusts can have twice as much dough and have a higher proportion of fat than crusts bought from stores.
Ideal Baking Time for Empty Pie Crust
How long do you bake a pie crust unfilled? It takes about 40 minutes to bake an empty pie crust fully. Once it cools, it’s ready to fill with any cream filling or nay deliciously flavored pie filling.
The common issue that you will encounter when pre-baking a homemade crust is its slumping sides. Homemade crusts have a high-fat content that melts when heated in the oven, and it can slump unless there is a filling to prop up the sides of the pie crust.
Another issue is the air pockets in the center. The bottom of the crust puffs up if you don’t bake an empty pie crust with some weights, or poke holes into the bottom of the crust.
Baking an Empty Pie Crust
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Chill time: 30 minutes
- Total time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 9-inch pie crust
- Serving Size: 1 pie crust
Ingredients:
- Frozen or refrigerated pie crust
- Rice, lentils, pie weights, or beans
Steps:
- Prepare crust as directed in recipe. Place in pie plate and crease as desired.
- Before baking, chill the pie crust for at least four hours or freeze for 30 minutes to one hour.
- Preheat the oven to 425°F.
- Place the parchment paper on the bottom of the pie crust; make sure to make the parchment flush with the crust and fill the pie with pie weights, rice, lentils, or beans.
- Place pie on a cookie sheet. Bake it 15-20 minutes, or until the edges of the crust starts to turn brown.
- Remove the crust from the oven. Then, remove the parchment and pie weights carefully, and using a fork, poke holes all over the bottom of the crust.
- Lastly, bake for another 15-20 minutes, or until crust is browned and cooked through. Let it cool before filling as desired.
Conclusion
If you want to bake an excellent pie crust, it is essential to know how long do you bake a pie crust unfilled. There are common mistakes in baking that can be prevented, given the right information such as baking time. Now that you know how long do you bake a pie crust unfilled, you got to give it a try. Happy baking! Know more about pie crusts.