Blind baking
Bling baking is a key step in making sure quiches and pies don’t come out with soggy bases.
When making quiches and pies it is important that your pastry is cooked all the way through. Blind baking or pre-baking is a crucial step that makes sure your apple pie crust hasn’t got a soggy bottom. It is achieved by pre-cooking the pastry before a filling is added.
How to blind bake
The steps are simple:
- Line your try with your pastry, making sure it fits into the corners and reaches the top of the tin.
- Prick the base of the pastry lightly with a fork.
- Take a piece of baking parchment and place on top of the pastry.
- Pour over the pastry your baking beans making sure they fill each corner.
- Place in the oven
- When the pastry is firm you know it is ready for the filling.
The baking beans work in two ways, they act as a weight making sure the pastry stays in place while cooking and they protect the pastry from getting too brown in the oven.
Baking bean alternatives
Baking beans are small ceramic or metal balls that are specially designed for blind baking. They are useful to have at your disposal but they are not the only thing you can use! Rice, lentils, beans or other pulses make good substitutes! If you don’t have any of these you can scrunch up some tinfoil and that works fine too!
If you don’t have baking parchment, tinfoil and oven proof cling film can also be used instead.
Cooking hack:
Scrunch up your baking parchment and then flatten it out again before using, this will make it more pliable and easy to line the tin.
