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Pre-baking 2 crust pie crusts


Beusho

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Just starting to get into baking and I've been reading different apple pie recipes for this summer's upcoming BBQs. Some of the 2 crust apple pie recipes I've seen say to pre bake both the top and bottom crust and put the top on at the end. Does this work? I would imagine the top crust would just fall off the slices. There's been no mention of anything to adhere the top crust to the bottom crust. Anybody have experience doing this?

“...no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”

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I first heard about prebaking the crust for a 2-crust pie in an article about Bill Yosses, (soon-to-be-former) White House pastry chef. He'd blind bake the bottom crust, load the pie with apples or whatever, and then add the top crust and bake the whole pie. Supposedly, the advantage is that the bottom crust is guaranteed to get cooked properly and stay crisp.

 

I've been known to bake "cookies" of pie crust, and place one on top of each serving of open-faced pie. For people who love crust, this is a way to give them more of the good stuff.

MelissaH

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I first heard about prebaking the crust for a 2-crust pie in an article about Bill Yosses, (soon-to-be-former) White House pastry chef. He'd blind bake the bottom crust, load the pie with apples or whatever, and then add the top crust and bake the whole pie. Supposedly, the advantage is that the bottom crust is guaranteed to get cooked properly and stay crisp.

 

I've been known to bake "cookies" of pie crust, and place one on top of each serving of open-faced pie. For people who love crust, this is a way to give them more of the good stuff.

 

Blind baking the bottom crust is very, very common.

What I have not seen is a prebaked top crust for a whole pie. -One that is then attached to a blind baked bottom crust filled with apple filling as mentioned by the OP.

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The source is from Susan Corriher's Cookwise, it's the big chunk apple pie from that book which people who I know who've had it said it was great. She blind bakes the bottom crust and then uses the remaining dough rolled out and put on a metal bowl which she then bakes. The pie is made by cooking the bottom crust, top crust and pie filling separately and then just assembling all three, there's no mention of baking after the top crust is put on.

“...no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”

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Just a minor correction. The author is Shirley O. Corriher and here's the recipe I think is meant:

http://www.jewishfood-list.com/recipes/pie/applepiebigchunk01.html

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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That recipe is quite something.  I love the poster's note at the end:  "This recipe takes some time."  To put it mildly.  It does sound intriguing, but I don't quite understand how the top crust works.  If you drape it over a bowl and bake it "until deep golden brown," won't it be too convex in shape to fit over the apples without breaking?

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That recipe is quite something. I love the poster's note at the end: "This recipe takes some time." To put it mildly. It does sound intriguing, but I don't quite understand how the top crust works. If you drape it over a bowl and bake it "until deep golden brown," won't it be too convex in shape to fit over the apples without breaking?

I think the idea is that it's stiff enough after baking to fit over all like a crisp cap. I've never thought of cooking an apple filling separately from the crust, much less cooking both crusts separately from each other. Bless Shirley Corriher for her innovations, but it seems a lot of complication compared to my family's standard apple pie with crumb crust. I'll happily try it if someone else makes it! ;-)

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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In the Corriher recipe, you're not pre-baking the top crust, you're just plain baking it. There's no secondary bake.

 

Right you are.  

 

Bake the bottom crust, bake the top crust, cook the filling; assemble and serve.

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I was planning on doing this

1. Bake the bottom crust the night before

2. Cook the apple filling

3. Assemble bottom crust and filling

4. Add a top crust from the left over dough

5. bake briefly to bake the top crust

A few questions

 

What would be a good temp/time to shoot for in #5, the filling and bottom crust are already finished, the only thing I would need the last heating step for is to bake the top crust. I'm thinking it would be a lattice crust. Would this overbake the bottom crust or fillings? 

Thanks for any help

“...no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.”

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