Pre-baking dough shells

[Starkman]

Heavens, I suppose I could have tried to search this subject, but...well...oh, forget it!

Anyway,

I am really confused (and concerned) about something: pre-baking pie (and other dough) shells; how do you know when to pre-bake and not to pre-bake, and how do you keep from burning the shell during the second bake?

I do know that when you're baking something that's really wet, pre-baking is advisable (and, I believe, putting a wash on the dough floor), and that makes sense. And I know that you can use aluminum foil to cover the crust if it starts getting too dark during the second cooking, but what about the rest of the crust getting all that heat from the pan during the second bake?

This whole thing still scares me because I find little mention of how to prevent burns during the second bake when pre-bakingg is discussed.

I'm very afeard!

Some info on this would be great.

Thanks,

Starkman

[maggiethecat]

Tell us why you're pre-baking pie shells and then perhaps I can help.

[Paul Stanley]

I would nearly always pre-bake, if pre-baking is possible. In practice that means anything which is a "shell" (e.g. a tart case) is pre-baked, and anything that is an "enclosure" (e.g. the crust of a fish or meat en croute, or a sausage roll) is not. The reason I think is not so much wet fillings (though no doubt that is a factor) as cooking temperature. Most of the time it is better to cook the filling at a lower temperature than pastry wants -- a custard filling, for instance, in a quiche, doesn't want to be baked high; but underbaked pastry is either unpleasant or at any rate not as it should be. The fact that the second baking is generally at a relatively low temperature also helps prevent burning of the pastry. Conversely, with the "enclosures" you cook the whole thing at the temperature the pastry wants (i.e. hot), and aim to insulate the interior (with stuffings etc) so that it does not overcook, or deal with fillings (fatty sausage-meat) which can take a bit of punishment.

You avoid overcooking the second time by (a) stopping your first cooking when the pastry is just fully "set" and only faintly colouring if you are to cook again, (b) letting the shell cool fully before rebaking, © rebaking at a lower temperature -- usually desirable anyway -- and (d) covering with foil if necessary (it usually isn't). In some cases you fill and do not rebake (e.g. a tart with pastry cream), in which case you must bake fully the first time.

In general, recipes which produce any sort of "tart" benefit from blind baking. Recipes which don't specify it are (usually ...) taking a shortcut in the interests of apparent simplicity, but with likely loss of texture, and should be distrusted. Home cooks quite often try to dispense with the blind-baking step in the belief that it is unnecessary fuss. This is usually a mistake, though you may get away with it if the product in question will tolerate rather long and hot cooking, and is not too wet (such as a jam-filled product). But it generally manages to produce a magnificently wrong-headed combination of overcooked filling and undercooked pastry, familiar to anyone who has eaten a reasonable number of quiches at "bring and share" events.

The difficult product (for me) is the double-crust pie. You could pre-cook the bottom and then add the filling and the top. I have seen recipes that do this, but I think the more standard method is to use all unbaked pastry. The saving grace is that these are usually products which will tolerate long and rather hot baking (45 minutes or so in a hottish oven) without spoiling the filling too much. But you have, even so, to resign yourself to a rather stodgy layer on the inside of the bottom crust, which is (for the double-crust-pie-lover) part of the charm of the dish, and for others an unavoidable flaw. It is worth trying to keep the bottom crust rather thinner than the top crust.

I have heard it said that choice of the bakeware may also help. If you want to encourage relatively rapid browning of the bottom, use black metal or glass. If you want to discourage it, use silver metal. I don't know if there's any truth in this, logical as it may sound -- I rather suspect that in most ovens there isn't much.

[LindaK]

Paul, your explanation of "shell" v. "enclosure" makes a lot of sense and seems consistent with the recipes I've followed for both types of pastry recipes. I always pre-bake a pie shell when possible.

From experience I can vouch for the difference that bakeware material makes when baking anything, not just pies/tarts. Glass and dark metal definitely make baked goods brown more rapidly. That's why I always use a glass pie pan for a double crusted pie, when you can't pre-bake. the bottom crust browns faster and so doesn't get soggy.

[JAZ]

The difficult product (for me) is the double-crust pie. You could pre-cook the bottom and then add the filling and the top. I have seen recipes that do this, but I think the more standard method is to use all unbaked pastry. The saving grace is that these are usually products which will tolerate long and rather hot baking (45 minutes or so in a hottish oven) without spoiling the filling too much. But you have, even so, to resign yourself to a rather stodgy layer on the inside of the bottom crust, which is (for the double-crust-pie-lover) part of the charm of the dish, and for others an unavoidable flaw. It is worth trying to keep the bottom crust rather thinner than the top crust.

My best luck with double crust pies is when the filling is cooked before adding. Chicken pot pies, for instance. When I've made double crust apple pies, the only time I've been successful with the crust is to cook the apples about halfway before sealing up in the durs.

[Starkman]

Great, great information. I greatly appreciate it, and I understand a whole lot more about this subject than I did before posting my questions. I feel like I can move into experimenting with half an idea where I'm now going.

Thanks again,

Starkman

[maggiethecat]

I'm seriously befuddled. I've never had a soggy bottom crust result from making a double crust fruit pie with raw fruit, sugar and cornstarch. A big ole pyrex pie plate and a tour in the oven is all I use. All raw pastry all the way. Just remember to sprinkle the bottom crust with flour before you add the fruit.

[Paul Stanley]

I've never had a soggy bottom crust result from making a double crust fruit pie with raw fruit, sugar and cornstarch.

A tribute to superior technique!

I confess I had in mind pies like steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom and really deep fruit pies without cornstarch -- so perhaps more soggy-making liquid than you. And maybe "soggy" is the wrong word -- at any rate I've never found a way of avoiding having an element of pasty, custardy pastry just inside the bottom layer with that sort of pie. I tend to think of it as just part of the natural order.

[Blether]

Longer cooking will finish off the bottom crust; and one of the advantages of glass is being able to see when that happens. But if you don't believe me, mosey on over to YouTube and confer with

.

[RichardJones]

>In general, recipes which produce any sort of "tart" benefit from blind baking.

I'd respectfully disagree with this - although it does depend on what kind of tarts we're discussing. As far as the most common tarts you find in French patisseries go, they are nearly all baked in one go - I'm thinking all manner of amandine style tarts (ie tarts using crème d'amandes and eg pear, apricot, even cherry) and also any baked fruit tart (especially apple tarts).

Perhaps it is because these can all be baked at once that makes them so popular.

One major exception is the lemon tart but the kind of lemon tart I see most often uses a lemon cream cooked in a pan so no re-baking is required - again, this saves the hassle of double baking so burning isn't a worry.

But as Paul Stanley says, the best plan is to blind bake the case when the filling needs to be cooked at a lower temperature (eg baked lemon, chocolate tarts, quiches &c). If the oven is set to below about 160 Celsius the pastry should not brown much further (at least, not in a rush) so you have a temperature at which egg based fillings will set without upsetting the case.

Richard