How to Keep Pie Crust From Shrinking: 8 Tips for Blind Baking

Pie crust is the baked outer pastry shell of a pie, traditionally made with flour, water, salt, and fat—usually butter or shortening. Egg wash is applied to the top crust before baking to achieve a glossy, golden-brown finish. A pie crust usually covers a pie plate—a round piece of bakeware—and the edge of the pie crust covers the lip of the pie plate. Some pies, like cream pies or custard pies, have one crust covering the bottom of the pie plate beneath the filling. Other pies feature a second crust covering the top of the filling, such as apple pie.

In pie- and tart-making, the technique of blind baking involves baking the dough fully by itself (weighted to keep its shape) so that it can be served with unbaked fillings, like pastry cream and fruit. Bakers typically blind bake pie crusts and pie shells when making custard and fruit pies, like pumpkin pie and chess pie, and quiches.

After shaping and crimping the pie dough into a tart pan or pie dish, you’ll line it with parchment paper, aluminum foil, or coffee filters, and then weigh it down with pie weights, rice, or dry beans, and then pre-bake the crust on its own, before filling it. Some tart or pie recipes will tell you to “dock” (or pierce with the tines of a fork) the bottom of the dough before baking to prevent it from puffing up, but it’s not always necessary.

A pie crust may shrink during the process of blind baking. To prevent the pie crust from shrinking, follow these baking tips:

1. 1. Avoid overworking the dough. Overmixing the pie dough can activate the gluten, causing the pie dough to become firm and shrink in the oven.
2. 2. Add water to the dough. Add water a tablespoon at a time when mixing the dough, just enough so the dough stays together when pressed. The water evaporates when the pie dough is baking, if there’s too much water in the pie dough, the pie dough will shrink.
3. 3. Prick holes in the crust. To prevent the pie crust from puffing up too much while blind baking, prick the pie crust with a fork. Space the markings every inch around the crust to create air holes for the steam to escape.
4. 4. Use pie weights. Line the pie crust with a big piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil, then use pie weights to weigh down the pie crust to keep it from sliding down and shrinking. You can buy pie weights or you use dry beans, uncooked rice, or even pennies.
5. 5. Use a metal or ceramic pe plate. Glass pie pans are more slippery than metal or ceramic pie plates. Pies in glass pie plates tend to shrink more, because it’s easier for the pie dough to slide down the sides.
6. 6. Bake at the correct oven temperature. A too-high baking temperature can also cause the gluten in the dough to tighten up, causing the crust to shrink. Blind bake pie dough at a low temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
7. 7. Freeze the pie crust. After you roll out the pie crust, let the dough rest in the refrigerator for thirty minutes. Refrigerating will help the fat in the dough re-solidify and allow the gluten in the dough relax, leading to a flakier pie dough that doesn’t shrink.
8. 8. Make the crust edges thicker. You can make the edges of the crust thicker than the bottom of the crust, which will help weigh down the crust and keep the edges from sliding down the pie plate. When you roll out the pie dough on to the pie dish, extra dough might hang off the edges of the pie—just roll this overhang under the edges of the crust and crimp as usual.

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