Estelle de Paris

I have been making my own pie crust for long enough now. And let me tell you something.  There is nothing better than precooking it! I know cause I am lazy too, sometimes…

You do not want a soggy pie/tart!
No you don’t!

You can buy expensive weights specially made for precooking, or use beans or you can make parchment paper discs. All three methods have one thing in common: they prevent the crust from raising and you absolutely need to chose one!

Here is an easy tutorial to make parchment paper discs to prevent your crust from raising while it precooks.

I recommend precooking your crust from 15 to 20 minutes in a preheated 325 °F oven (160 °C).
I would also recommend you start with 15 minutes and prolong one minute at a time until the crust start to color a little bit.

Once the tart/pie is cooked I usually reuse the disc, presenting the tart on the disc. It makes it easy to serve and won’t stick to the plate/serving dish.

1. Cut a rectangle of parchment paper,

2. Fold in half, you obtain a square,

3. Fold on the diagonal, you obtain a triangle,

4. Fold on the diagonal, again and again or at least as much as you can. Here in this example, I use mini tart dishes so I do not have to fold so much.
Then grab your scissors and cut the tip. That will be the center of your disc. The reason why you need to cut a hole in the center is to let the air circulate.

5. Now place your thingymaggig aka parchment disc on the radius of your pie crust and cut just at the edge. It is better to make it bigger than smaller so do not worry if it’s not perfectly perfect.

6. There you go!

7. Now put it on your crust, insisting on the corners. Because there is a lot of butter in homemade crust, it should stick just fine.

Voilà!
You are now ready to precook them for 15/20 minutes in your 325 °F (160 °C) preheated oven.