Here's When You Need To Blind Bake Pie Crust

If you've ever baked a mouthwatering homemade pie, only to find that your crust is underbaked and flimsy, you're not alone. Preventing that dreaded "soggy bottom" can be challenging, and it often relies on mastering a crucial baking technique known as blind baking. To demystify when and why to blind bake, we spoke with expert baker and cookbook author Erin Jeanne McDowell, who notes that it's "a technique used only for cold-set pies, such as key lime or banana cream."

"When blind baking, the crust is fully baked on its own before assembling the pie, because the filling doesn't require baking," McDowell explains. Essentially, blind baking ensures that your pie crust is carefully baked to golden-brown perfection, even when your filling isn't going into the oven, producing a crispy and satisfying texture with each bite.

Because it's going into the oven by itself, lacking any heavy fillings, it's essential to weigh down your pie crust when blind baking. This helps the crust keep its shape while it bakes, preventing it from rising unevenly. You can use dedicated pie weights for this, which are typically little balls made of ceramic or metal. But if you don't have pie weights, you can always substitute dried beans or grains of rice. Just be sure to cover the crust with aluminum foil or parchment paper before adding in your weights — the last thing you want is your pie crust to stick to them.

Blind baking can make or break your homemade cold-set pies. That being said, the term is commonly thrown around in various pie recipes, even when it's not used correctly. According to McDowell, a similar pie crust baking method known as "par-baking" is often incorrectly misnamed as "blind baking," even though they are different techniques. "Par-baking stands for 'partially baking' — and is done to help ensure a crisp crust on single-crust pies that have a filling that requires baking, such as pecan or pumpkin," McDowell explains.

When par-baking, the crust is placed in the oven sans filling and can be accompanied by pie weights, just as with blind baking. Unlike the aforementioned method, however, a par-baked crust is not baked to completion. Instead, it's taken out of the oven before adding in any fillings. From there, the par-baked crust — fillings and all — is placed back in the oven to finish baking. Though par-baking can create a crisp crust, it's not designed for every kind of homemade pie.

"In my opinion, par-baking should be done on any single-crust pie, or you'll risk a soggy bottom," McDowell notes. "Double-crust pies have longer total bake times and therefore do not require par-baking." With that in mind, the next time you're making a homemade apple pie with an intricate top crust, there's no need to take the extra step. If you're looking for more baking tips, visit Erin Jeanne McDowell's YouTube channel or follow her on Instagram.