Absurdly, stupidly basic pastry & baking questions

[AlaMoi]

if the crust itself has plenty of fat, the culprit may be the fat melting/being too soft when the pan meets the heat.

the fat oozes out a bit, and glues the crust to the pie pan....

 

try freezing the crust after you lay it into the pie pan.  2-3 hours minimum.  that keeps the fat 'intact' during the initial 'heat shock' in the oven.

 

I have found that 'idea' especially successful when using the common grocery store aluminum stamped out pans - they have 'crinkles' from the stamping all along the sides that seem to attract "I'm here, stick to me!"

seems the old fashion smooth pans are less susceptible to the "glue me here" issue.  

[Jim D.]

13 minutes ago, AlaMoi said:

if the crust itself has plenty of fat, the culprit may be the fat melting/being too soft when the pan meets the heat.

the fat oozes out a bit, and glues the crust to the pie pan....

 

try freezing the crust after you lay it into the pie pan.  2-3 hours minimum.  that keeps the fat 'intact' during the initial 'heat shock' in the oven.

 

I have found that 'idea' especially successful when using the common grocery store aluminum stamped out pans - they have 'crinkles' from the stamping all along the sides that seem to attract "I'm here, stick to me!"

seems the old fashion smooth pans are less susceptible to the "glue me here" issue.  

 

Thanks for the idea.  The crust was chilled, but I will try freezing it next time.

[JeanneCake]

what kind of pie plate are you using (glass or metal)? have you ever tried spraying the pie plate first (very lightly) before fitting the dough in? Or even use a little crisco instead of butter on the pie plate?

[Jim D.]

11 hours ago, JeanneCake said:

what kind of pie plate are you using (glass or metal)? have you ever tried spraying the pie plate first (very lightly) before fitting the dough in? Or even use a little crisco instead of butter on the pie plate?

 

I am using glass.  I have not tried those options.  When you mention spraying, I assume you mean with something like Pam.  One "technique" I didn't mention is that, to be sure the area where the sides meet the bottom of the crust, I really press the dough to thin it out at that spot and, at the same time, push the dough up the sides to make a rim.  I have a lot of trouble getting the dough the same thickness all over.

[JeanneCake]

I would try spraying ever so lightly with Pam or another cooking spray - you could even spray a wadded up paper towel and just run it around the pie plate; and I'm thinking if you use something (like caramel bars or few rulers taped down ) as a guide when you're rolling (you know those rings they put on the edges of rolling pins so you can roll it to an even thickness) that can help.

 

Chilling the dough definitely helps.  

 

If you decide some day to par bake your pie, you might want to experiment with this method. When we have small pie shells to bake (they're in foil tins) we bake them upside down so they don't shrink.  I put an empty pie tin in the dough lined tin and flip it over on a piece of parchment on a sheet pan.  You can't really do that with a glass pie plate though.  But if you ever wanted to try something different - those disposable pie tins are pretty cheap (both in terms of $ and quality)

[Jim D.]

@JeanneCake, thanks for those very useful ideas.  I have in the past parbaked the shell for this pie, and it was a definite improvement, but the sides did slide down a bit.  Since then I have discovered RLB's parchment + beans method for parbaking, so I might try that next Thanksgiving.  Foil and beans is a definitely bad idea, since (as RLB warns) the foil makes the crust like cardboard.

 

Some may wonder why I am asking about pumpkin pie in July.  For the simple reason that I discovered a can of pumpkin left over from last year's pumpkin bonbons and wanted to use it up soon..  My explanation to the July 4 guests was that I was celebrating the native Americans who reportedly gave us pumpkin.