How To Blind Bake A Pie Crust

I always have a couple of packs of Carême ready-rolled pastry in my freezer for quick pies and tarts.

A pot pie is the quickest and easiest pie to make as the ingredients go into a dish and are topped with pastry to give a crisp lid. Sometimes, however, you want a pie with a pastry base, and that’s when you need to know how to blind bake a pie crust.

Baking the pastry before adding the filling guarantees a crisp bottom crust, but if you bake it uncovered, it may puff up too much to hold the filling properly. So it’s generally blind baked, which means covered with baking paper that’s weighed down to prevent it puffing up. If you don’t have pastry weights, use dried legumes, rice or even coffee beans to weigh it down.

Here’s how to blind bake a pie crust (see step-by-step video below):

1. Line the base and sides of a pie tin with pastry.
2. Press it gently into the tin.
3. It will shrink when cooked. If the tin is deeper than the filling requires, use a sharp knife to trim it off level with the rim of the tin; otherwise leave 1–2cm above the rim and trim after cooking.
4. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork.
5. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200°C.
7. Cover the pastry with baking paper and top with pastry weights or dried beans.
8. Bake for 10 minutes.
9. Discard paper and beans and bake for a further 5 minutes or so until lightly coloured.
10. Add filling and proceed with recipe.