Nothing like a round of bad luck with pie dough to set your kitchen ego straight.
This was suppose to be a beautifully golden baked pie crust to build my chocolate raspberry coconut cream pie upon.
Instead, my pile of old beans that I use as pie weights crushed into my delicate dough and caused it to under-cook. Blech. And note I didn’t have any parchment paper between the beans and the dough. Double whoops. Picking those suckers out of the dough wasn’t any fun. And popping the dough back in the oven just made it crack all over the bottom.
Sigh.
16 Comments
Aluminum foil works, too – just put a layer on top of your crust and then put your weights (ceramic balls, metal chains, old dried beans or whatever) on top. My mom always used beans, I love my ceramic weights, but I drool over the linked metal weights that you can pick up all at once.
Ha! Maybe you should make a bean pie… ?
But the photo stays. It looks so arty! Love it.
I always skip that bean/parchment paper nonsense and my tarts and crusts turn out perfectly fine. In fact, I’ve been reading over so many tart crust recipes that call for cream, parchement etc… and it get’s almost pretentious. The best crust I’ve ever used is from the collection I inherited from my great-aunt. And it’s from Betty Crocker of all things. 1/3 cup, plus one tablespoon shortening, 1 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons cold water. Prick the bottom and bake at 475 for 8-10 minutes. I use this recipe for everything that calls for a crust and I’m never disappointed.
The picture is great though! it caught my interest immediately with the thought of ‘what in the world is she making!?’
Oooh, I have done that one myself. I was expecting culinary brilliance while it was baking and when I pulled it out I thought, well, I have a long way to go, don’t I?? I love the picture though.
Hey I applaud you for the pie attempt! I’m a pie wuss.
How about using rice, that works nice for me : ) Hope that helps
Once I decided to go to culinary school I began having a series of spectacular kitchen failures. The worst: I rushed a pie dough and popped it into the oven when it was way too warm. The result was a pie crust that literally MELTED off my pie, all over the bottom of the oven. Not pretty, and lesson learned. Butter and Crisco live in my freezer now!
I love foodblog posts like these. I believe that you’re really cookin’ when you screw things up from time to time. If we always followed “the rules” to the letter, we’d never learn what was optional, what was a good idea, what we absolutely must do or terrible-ness will ensue. And without failure, we never get those flashes of brilliance… or, perhaps “tastiness” in this context?
How do you make your pie dough? I’m a wuss when it comes to pie.
At least the picture looks cool!
Thanks for sharing about your mishap – this sounds like something I would do. And the photo is definitely very interesting! Cool texture.
So, dear daughter, I’ve never been able to “blind bake” a pie shell with good results. Mine do just like yours did, always raw on the bottom if I lined it. If you fill it with beans or rice they do get stuck! I freeze my pie shell and fork the sides and bottom many times over and then bake it, skipping the beans, rice, foil or what ever. I might have “saggy” sides once in a while but I’ve had better luck doing it that way…
I love that you blogged this. If only I was so brave about my gardening failures this year, and there have been many.* FAIL!
Hey, at least you got a great photo out of it!
*Who the heck fails with zucchini?! ME!
I love your site and I’m so glad you shared this little pie crust mishap, it has happened to me a few times!
I did this recently too! I am glad I am not the only one.
Lol. Thanks for sharing. I was actually thinking of a “cheese” pie until I read your post.
