Partial Blind Baking

One of the requirements of the recipe I am following that uses the Pâte Brisée Riche is to partially bake the crust or as it's referred to in the cookbook, to "blind bake" it, before adding the filling. I have a vague memory of doing this technique at least once before with a crust from a now long forgotten recipe. I do remember that I didn't have pie weights and so I blind baked the crust without anything weighing down the dough and the crust bubbled up and baked unevenly all around, even burning pretty badly in some spots. I remember making a mental shopping list at the time, putting pie weights on it, but then, like many gadget shopping excursions of mine, when I was finally at a store that may have sold them, I didn't remember that I wanted pie weights and so, I never did pick any up. I have since learned that one doesn't really need pie weights at all if one has something as simple as a bag of dried beans in the house!

According to the cookbook The Baker's Bible edited by Deborah Gray:

Blind Baking is a method of preheating a pastry case, either partially or completely, to prevent the pastry from becoming soggy and to ensure the base cooks evenly.

So, after preheating the oven to 400 degrees and after rolling out the dough and carefully fitting it into my tart pan, I then cut out a large piece of wax paper, folded it in half, then cut it into a circle about 3 inches larger than the pan. I inserted the wax paper into the pan, pressing it down so that it mimicked the shape of the pan and then poured a 3/4 full bag of dried beans onto the waxed paper and pressed them down firmly but gently making sure the beans formed a single layer in the pan. see photo above

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is set and the rim looks dry and golden.

I should have left the crust in the oven for 25 or even 30 minutes because my oven is so off, but, I live and learn. When I removed the crust from the oven and let it cool enough to remove the beans and wax paper I was pleased to see that even though it hadn’t browned as much as I would have liked, it was at least uniform and nothing had burned. I then let the crust cool quite a bit more, then, added the filling and put it back into the oven for it's final baking. I'll write more on how that turned out and my final thoughts on the variation on the master recipe for Pâte Brisée AND how the recipe that used the crust turned out in the next day or so, so if you like, stay tuned.

Written by Deb on December 28, 2003 10:48 PM