Cookaholics Bulletin Board

If you have two pie dishes of the same size try blind baking one with the second inside the first instead of pie weights. Frequently the perfect solution.

Amy

I love Emile Henry, have their Lasagna pan, gratins and the flametop DO as well as a smaller cocotte. Don't have pie dishes (don't bake enough pies to justify the expense since I have over a dozen Pyrex ones.
Checked prices anyway and saw that Zappos has them on sale for $39.00 and Amazon has the olive green one for $33.00. They also have the 4.2 qt. flametop DO on sale for $89.00. That is a great price. I love it for everything from braises to baking the no-knead bread (no knob problems).

Amazon has a set of two 5½" X 1½" pie ones that have just gone on my wish list, though I have no idea when I'd use them.

Slumping pie crust may indicate that it is spending too much time in that temperature zone where the fats have melted, but the structure of the crust has not yet set. The very long blind blind baking time also points to the same issue.

Many bakers use metal pie pans for single crust pies for their ability to set and brown blind baked crusts quickly. If this is not an option, a solution may lie in a higher baking temperature. I would raise the temperature of the oven 25º for each successive test until I found the temperature that would get the crust baked in 25-30 minutes.

While in the testing mode, I would try a crust with no butter and the water content it brings to the recipe. If 100% lard is not in the cards and Crisco is dirty word, Spectrum palm shortening or coconut oil could be the answer.

I too am wondering if a non-fluted pie plate would work better. One with a rim that you can press the crust into as you crimp. I have the plate you are using and the crust always slumps in it. That doesn't happen, at least not nearly as badly with the regular old pie plate with the rim.

Emily,

It's definitely the Emile Henry plate that is the culprit. They are gorgeous and practical in so many ways, but heat up so much more slowly than glass or metal that they do cause slumping in blind baked crusts unless you keep the weights in for longer than the recipe calls for. I suppose you could raise the oven temp too (not sure if that would burn things though), but I find that foil lining, filling with weights and cooking until set (regardless of how long this takes) does the job. It took me forever to figure this out...for the longest time I just thought I sucked at making pie.

Lots of great advice in this thread!

Hijack time: does anyone else have the song "Your love is driving me crazy" go through your mind when you see the title of this thread?

Not really....... more like "Hippy Hippy Shake" by Chan Romero (1959).

Oh, for goodness sake!